


Come as you are

by theressomanyusernames



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Attempt at Humor, College AU, M/M, Slow Burn, There are other characters but I only put down those that have substantial dialogue, Trans Character, Underage Drinking, conspiracy buff sollux is 0 percent canon but youll rip that headcanon from my cold dead hands, lowkey actually a lot of drinking and weed towards the beginning not so much as it goes on, minor davekat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theressomanyusernames/pseuds/theressomanyusernames
Summary: Come doused in mud, soaked in bleachAs I want you to beAnd that’s how it started with Eridan and Sollux: an old song, a few quick glances, and a hangover that began before the night was even over.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi im back! i really missed writing things that were silly and fun just for the sake of being silly and fun so… here you go! heres my attempt to poke fun at the age-old concept of a song fic, while still unironically writing a song fic.  
> im also gonna try some new things stylistically, so bear with me! updates will be sporadic but fairly quick.  
> i would call the first chapter more of a prologue than a chapter one, really, because they don't actually interact, but I don't think this site has a prologue option.

Maybe it started at the party, but it might be more accurate to say it was written in the stars. Or maybe, if you want to get more technical and less poetic, we should say that there’s something integral in the way that Sollux and Eridan lived the first 20 years of their lives that made them weirdly perfect for one another, and on top of all that, random chance managed to push them together, as inelegantly and efficiently as chance always does, like jumping onto the train you needed to catch just a second before would’ve left without you. But if we wanted to avoid all of this, and avoid explaining to one another, tirelessly, the brilliant mechanisms of chance, we can say that it started at the party.

So this is a story about how Eridan and Sollux managed to stumble into each other during their first semester of junior year.

Here are a few notable things about the party:  
It was a halloween party  
It took place on Saturday, October 28th  
People were encouraged to wear costumes, but not required  
People were asked to pay three dollars, but friends of the host could get in for free  
Most people weren’t friends of the host  
There were a lot of really kitschy decorations on the walls  
Sollux was particularly fond of the plastic bats that were hanging from the ceiling in the basement  
Eridan didn’t care for any of the decorations  
They had cheap vodka and Sprite for people who wanted to mix their own drinks  
Most people drank the mystery punch from the coolers in the kitchen instead  
The mystery punch contained: A shit ton of cheap vodka and lemonade mix  
It was incredibly dark inside  
Nobody took their shoes off, but if they did, they would learn that the floor was incredibly sticky  
The music wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good  
It was hot, crowded, and a little bit smelly  
Most people there would have called it a fun party

Now here are a few facts about Eridan Ampora:  
He’s disgustingly rich  
He doesn’t see anything wrong with being disgustingly rich  
Being rich comprises very little of his personality, but it’s the part he likes to show people the most  
He’s intensely insecure, and easily comes off as desperate  
His desperation is one of his biggest flaws, but his friends and enemies alike would agree that his selfishness and vanity are even more damning  
He makes terrible first impressions  
He made two separate terrible first impressions on Sollux Captor  
Later he made some good impressions, mostly due to his sense of genuity, surprising wit, and incredible desire to be liked  
On the night of the party, he had come with a friend who abandoned him almost immediately after entering  
He was dressed like a vampire, and his costume was exuberantly expensive even though he doesn’t like Halloween that much

Here are a few facts about Sollux Captor, just to balance it out:  
The first thing people notice are the eyes  
They’re two different colors  
One’s blue, the other’s a fucked up brown that almost looks red  
He’s severely bipolar  
He notices the theme of duality, so he likes to lean in  
He wears glasses with blue and red lenses  
He’s generally rude, but his friends would agree that his performative nihilism and tendency to push people away are his much worse traits  
He redeems himself through a sense of humor, a brutally sharp intellect, and a secret propensity for optimism  
Upon walking into the party, he received his first bad impression of Eridan Ampora  
Later, sitting in a friend’s apartment, he received his second bad impression of Eridan Ampora  
Finally, sitting on a train, he received a good impression of Eridan Ampora  
A friend of his drew lazy cat whiskers on his face for the Halloween party, which would turn into unfortunate black smudges by the end of the night

Those are the basics, so let’s set the scene a little more. Eridan came to the party about an hour before Sollux, already drunk, and ready to drink more. The friend he came with abandoned him almost immediately upon entering, but you know that already. Eridan pretended not to mind, even though he did. He didn’t say anything because he was still in love with her. He went to the kitchen to drink more, and ran into an acquaintance who patted him gently on the back and said how Eridan looked so alone, and that he was always happy to smoke up a friend in need. Eridan smoked pot with him in the basement, took a few too many hits, and stumbled back up to the living room so he could sprawl out on the couch that was facing the door. He stayed like that for the whole night (certainly for the short amount of time that Sollux was there) and contemplated the mysteries of the universe. He only started to sober up once the place was clearing out.

He wondered what it would be like to fall into a wormhole, and if there’s any way he could fall into one and come out, completely intact, on the other side. That’s a good thing to wonder about; I don’t have the answer either.

Here are some more things you might want to know about Eridan Ampora:  
He was born about 20 years ago on January 30th  
That makes him an aquarius  
He has a brother that was born about 25 years ago on January 29th  
Which makes his brother an aquarius as well  
He was born into an exuberantly, obnoxiously rich family  
He was raised Lutheran and still believes in it, at least a little bit  
He went to private school  
He thought about being a girl once when he was thirteen  
He came to the conclusion that he did not want to be a girl, which lead to him keeping the name Eridan  
He didn’t have many friends growing up  
Feferi moved to his city when he was 12  
After that he had Feferi  
And after that he fell in love with Feferi  
He told her that his senior year of high school  
She did not feel the same, in any capacity  
They stayed friends  
He was still in love with Feferi well into his junior year of college  
He started to say he was bisexual when he was 15, because he thought it was artsy and interesting to be bisexual  
When he was 17 he realized that he really was bisexual, which lead him to wonder if one could will their sexuality in one direction or another  
He came to the conclusion that he had not willed his sexuality in one direction or another  
His parents poured out thousands of dollars for SAT tutors and people to edit his college applications  
They had more money than they knew what to do with, and even then some  
Eridan wrote a beautiful college essay about a Summer he spent with his family in France  
A few months later, he got accepted into one of the best Universities in the country  
The University offered him no financial aid whatsoever, which was not a problem for his family  
In his sophomore year he declared a major in history, specializing in Early Modern Western European history

And those are some things you should know about Eridan. This list is most certainly not exhaustive, so I’ll let you know when something else comes up that’s worth saying. I don’t want to bore you with exposition.

A friend of his walked by while Eridan was still sitting on the couch and said, “Fuck, Ampora. You look like a fourteen year old the first time he learned that he could disrespect his parents by destroying his body. This is seriously pathetic.”

Another friend, more of an acquaintance, said, “That’s actually a spot on depiction of him, is the kind of sad part.” 

Here are some facts about Eridan Ampora that may help you make sense of the remarks shared by Dave (the acquaintance) and Karkat (the friend):  
He hates his parents  
His parents don’t particularly care for him  
He discovered, during his sophomore year of college, that he could start acting out without facing any consequences from his parents, and has done so ever since  
He has a particularly lousy conception of what it means to drink in moderation  
Eridan was too fucked up to comprehend a word of what they were saying about him  
He was too busy thinking about falling into wormholes

Karkat said, “Do you think we should get Feferi back over here to check on him?”

“If you think we have to. He’s fine though. He’s just fucking crossed. Give him a bit, he’ll come down. I’ll keep an eye on him from here, if you’re so worried, Kitten.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“And that’s why I do it.”

Karkat went back into the crowd, and Dave watched Eridan, like he said he would, lingering near the aux cord. He was waiting for a moment when he could slip in and play some good music. So he would’ve been standing there anyways. Dave was keeping an eye on him more for Karkat’s sake than Eridan’s.

That’s about when Sollux Captor came in with a close friend who had pressured him into coming with her. When he went through the door, he said to his friend, “Hey, Aradia, look at that guy on the couch. He looks completely fucking out of it.” He laughed, and he went with her to get a drink. He likes to drink at parties, because otherwise he would be anxious. That’s most people, though; most people prefer to drink at parties rather than being sober. That’s not something you need to know about Sollux Captor.

Here are some things you should know about Sollux Captor instead:  
He was born about 20 years ago on May 30th  
That makes him a Gemini  
He has a brother that was born about 23 years ago on June 14th  
Which makes his brother a Gemini too  
He was born into an fairly low-income working class family  
He was raised Muslim but isn’t religious anymore  
He went to public school  
He thought about being a boy once when he was 4  
He came to the conclusion that he definitely wanted to be a boy, which lead to his family giving him the name Sollux before he started grade school  
He had a few close friends growing up  
He spent a lot of time with his older brother  
His older brother had an accident when Sollux was 14  
He was riding a car that drove into a semi  
The accident ruined his plans to study at Princeton  
His brother had a hard time doing things for himself after that  
He still can’t really do most things for himself  
So Sollux spent a lot of time helping his brother do little things like make food, and still gets stressed some days when he thinks about how far away he is from him  
Sollux realized he was bisexual when he was 14  
He was in denial about it for a few years  
When he finally accepted it he thought about how ridiculously well it went with his theme of duality  
His parents poured out 0 dollars for SAT tutors and people to edit his college applications  
Their spare funds were primarily occupied with medical bills, and even then, would cut it close  
Sollux wrote a scathing college essay about his hatred for elitism in higher education  
A few months later, he got accepted into one of the best Universities in the country  
The University offered him a full ride, which was an incredible relief for his family, who couldn’t have paid for it otherwise  
In his freshman year he declared a major in computer science

There is, of course, much more to Sollux Captor, but I don’t want to bore you. And it’s hard to sit and make a list about the most important things you should know about someone. I’ve sacrificed quite a bit of nuance here for the sake of brevity. But, of course, I hope that nuance will come in time.

After he caught a glimpse of Eridan, Sollux and Aradia went to the kitchen so that they could get drunk. He poured a lot of mystery vodka punch into a black solo cup (they had black and orange cups, not red, because it was a spooky occasion), and went down to the basement, where most people were dancing. Eridan didn’t even see him. Dave called out to say hello, but didn’t follow them into the basement, in case the DJ would miraculously abandon the aux cord during the three minutes it would take for him to say hello. Sollux and Aradia weren’t great friends of his, anyways, only acquaintances of sorts. He mostly knew them through Karkat.

Sollux and Aradia stayed at that party for forty uneventful minutes before hopping to another party that was a little quieter and had better alcohol. As they were on their way out, Eridan caught his first glimpse of Sollux. It wasn’t an important moment. Eridan thought that he liked Sollux’s hair and forgot about him almost immediately. He was still thinking about the mysteries of the universe at that point. 

It was only about an hour later that Eridan started to come to, and for an hour after that he stayed on the couch, coming to terms with the fact that he had gotten fucked up beyond return and wasted the entire night.

The first thing he said was, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, what the hell is this music?”

And Dave, who had finally gotten to play his undiscovered house and EDM gems said, “Welcome back from your ten year coma. This is what we, in the realm of the living, call music.” He looked back at his phone. “Just because your taste’s shit.”

“Where’s Fef?”

“Oh, dude, she left a while ago. Don’t you remember?”

“What?”

“Yeah. She was tired and you weren’t in a state to go anywhere. Told her and Karkitty I’d just keep an eye on you.”

Eridan slumped back into the couch, which he had just begun to notice was faded and disgusting. “How kind of you.”

“Yeah, I mean, I like to think of myself sort of like a Martyr. Don’t know why Francis hasn’t awarded me Sainthood yet.”

Karkat came over then, and asked what in the ever loving fuck Strider was playing with the aux cord. Eridan looked back up at the ceiling.

Dave and Karkat argued about it for a little bit. Then, Dave said this:

Alright, Kitten, I’ll give you a song. Put something in the queue. Then we’ll pick this sorry asshole up and get out of here.

Eridan was starting to get a headache by the time Dave’s last song was finished.

The first chord of Karkat’s song played. Dave said, “Really?”

“What? I like this song. Not every fucking song has to emerge from the darkest depths of the ocean for it to be worth a listen. There’s a reason some songs are popular. This song’s fucking good.”

“What is it?” Eridan asked from the couch. He was still looking at the ceiling.

“Seriously?” Karkat said, “You don’t know it?”

“Wouldn’t ask if I knew.”

“It’s Nirvana. Come as you are.”

“It’s catchy.”

“Do you like it?” Dave asked.

“Yeah. Sort of. I like it better than most of the stuff they played tonight.”

Karkat scoffed. “Can’t believe you’re so steeped in your indie bullshit that you don’t know fucking Nirvana.”

Dave said, “It’s not a bad song, actually. I mean, not the worst I’ve ever heard.”

And that’s how it started with Eridan and Sollux: with an old song, a few quick glances, and a hangover that began before the night was even over.

After they left, Eridan needed to stop and vomit in the bushes. It was as inelegant of an episode as you might expect.


	2. Chapter 2

Eridan’s hangover lasted well into the morning. He woke up to a missed call from Feferi, and thought he should call her back. She’d be worried.

And of course, he was still in love with her.

“Hello? Eridan?”

“Hey, Fef.”

“Erifin!”

“Fuck, goddamn, fuckin’ shit. Don’t yell. I’m hungover as shit.”

“I’m sorry,” she nearly whispered, “I was just excited.”

Here are a few things Eridan thought about saying:  
You didn’t seem so enthralled by my unfortunate company last night  
If you’re so excited to talk, why did you leave me last night like a piece of popcorn you dropped on a soggy sidewalk?  
So you’re worried about me the morning after, but last night you trusted one of the biggest douchebags at this university to watch over me  
Would you like to go out to lunch today? Or maybe tomorrow? Is there anyway I could make it up to you? I didn’t fuck up too much, right? You still like me, right? We’re still friends, just because I drank and smoked a little too much?

Instead, he said:  
“It’s okay. Just… just don’t do it again. Please.”

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re feeling up to, but if you eel like you can muscle up the strength to walk to Karkat’s, Dave’s making his famous hangover cure.”

Eridan sighed. He was still in bed, and didn’t want to leave. He knew, however, that some greasy food and decent company was the only way he’d even begin to recover from the near unfathomable spinning in his head. 

“Who’s all there?”

“Karkat and Dave, of course, and Karkat’s roommate- do you know her? Kanaya?”

“Yeah I know Kan. I got a class with her.”

“She’s here, Terezi may or may not stop by, and this other guy I’m actually pretty sure you don’t know.”

“What’s his name? I might know ‘im.”

“Sollux Captor? Computer science?”

“Mmm… maybe. No. I don’t know. Think I’ve heard the name before but can’t put a face to it.”

“He’s nice. Well, he’s not exactly nice, but I like him. I think you’d like him too. He’s kind of weird and funny… like you!”

“Hm…” Feferi had told Eridan several times before that one friend of hers or another reminded her of him. He never ended up liking them. 

“No pressure. We’d sure like to have you here though.”

Eridan rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. It reminded him of how much time he had spent the night before staring at the ceiling. “Okay can I ask you somethin’ that’s been botherin’ me? What’s like… do you know what’s goin’ on with Dave and Karkat? Are they like… are they datin’? Or just, you know are they fucking? Are they weirdly homoerotic bros?”

“Oh… that’s a tough one.” She laughed. “You know, I’ve gotten out of the habit of speculating. It’s even harder with Dave and Karkat, because you can’t ever tell if Dave’s being ironic or genuine about anything. And I wouldn’t ever approach Karkat with something like that.”

“Yeah he’s-” Eridan smirked, “he’s an angry little guy, ain’t he?”

“I’m not gonna open that can of eels until they’re ready to do it for me.”

“Okay. I still think there’s somethin’ there.”

“So are you coming or what?”

“I’ll… hm… I’ll Uber.”

“Don’t you live 10 minutes away?”

“Fef, you don’t know how much my goddamn head is trying to spin itself right off of my goddamn neck.”

“Alright, alright. See you soon.”

Eridan’s Uber driver spent the four minute ride telling him about how the earth was actually flat, instead of a sphere, and how the government had tricked us all for some reason into thinking it was a sphere. When he got to Karkat’s apartment building, Eridan got out of the Uber and said:

Thanks for the ride, I think the Earth’s a fuckin’ sphere, though.

Karkat answered the door. “You look hungover as shit.”

Eridan was wearing a scarf, grey sweats, and obnoxiously large sunglasses. Here are some other facts about the way Eridan Ampora looked on that day, and how he looks in general:  
He’s deathly pale, especially in the Winter  
He’s six feet tall  
He has short brown hair  
He usually styles his hair meticulously, every morning   
The morning he showed up at Karkat’s, it was uncombed and unstyled  
His build is fairly athletic  
He’s got freckles on his face and down his arms  
He dresses in a style most of his friends would describe as “hipster”  
He has a lilting East-coast accent that skirts the line often between being beautiful and being annoying

“Yeah? I am.” Eridan craned his head around and looked at Dave, standing in front of the stove in a bathrobe. “What’s he makin’?”

“Potatos. Greasy as all hell. You wanna come in? Or do you want to keep standing out there like a paralyzed antelope?”

Eridan moved past him, and into the living room. His apartment was clean; there was a lot of space for guests. He and Kanaya liked it that way. Feferi, who was sitting at the table, came to give him a hug.

“You know my Uber driver tried to tell me the earth was flat on the way over here?”

Dave scoffed from his place at the stove. He stirred the potatoes with a spatula. “Dude. That’s incredible.” Kanaya, who was sitting by the window reading the New Yorker on her tablet, smiled slightly too. 

“Oh yeah!” Feferi said, “You don’t know Sollux.”

Sollux Captor, who had been staring down at his phone looked up and said, “What?”  
Here are some other facts about the way Sollux Captor looked that morning, and you know, just in general:  
He’s half Indian, and he’s not very pale  
He’s five foot five  
He has short black hair  
He never styles his hair, except on special occasions  
The morning he showed up at Karkat’s, he hadn’t even combed it  
He has a fairly scrawny build and narrow shoulders  
His right thumb is double jointed  
He dresses in a style most of his friends would describe as “lazy”

Feferi was tugging Eridan over to the table. By that point, Karkat had already taken a seat next to Kanaya on the couch. “Okay!” she said, “Sollux, this is Eridan. Eridan, this is Sollux!”

“Oh, hey man,” Sollux said.

It took a minute for Sollux to process something. Then he said:

Oh, fuck, I know you. You were at that Halloween party last night. You looked, like seriously fucked up dude. What were you on, haha, heroin?

Then Eridan, ever-graceful and ever-defensive, said, “Theriouthly?”

Oh! Here’s another fact about Sollux Captor:  
He has an incredibly noticeable lisp

But I’m sure you’ve read enough of these that you probably already knew that. Still, it’s just good practice for me to remind you.

“Hey guys,” Sollux said, “did you know that I have a lisp? ‘Cause I didn’t know until this guy just pointed it out.” Sollux looked back down at his phone. “Douche.”

So that was the second bad impression, much worse than the first. It made everyone else in the apartment kind of tense up. If Sollux knew anything about Eridan, of course, he wouldn’t have called attention to his inability use substances in moderation, and if Eridan knew anything about being a generally pleasant person, he wouldn’t have made fun of a stranger’s lisp.

Feferi smiled like she was sorry about what happened, or that she was in some way responsible for Eridan’s misstep.

Dave said, “Nothing I like better than a big fat dose of fucking awkward in the morning. Really gets these gears going.”

Karkat pressed his hand to his forehead. “Just say you’re sorry Eridan.”

Eridan rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’m sorry. Whatever.”

Sollux, almost as gracefully as Eridan, said, “Your scarf makes you look like an asshole.”

Eridan sat down at the table across from him. “Thanks. That’s the goal.”

Feferi sat down too. “Sh, sh sh! You two should start over. This got off on a bad fin. Trust me, you two would be friends.”

Sollux smirked. “You know, you’ve said that about a lot of people, FF.” He looked at Eridan. “I haven’t liked most of them.”

“Anyone want potatoes?”

“Please,” Sollux said. 

“Kanaya?”

“No thank you.”

“Kitten?”

“Dave-”

Eridan looked at Feferi. He mouthed ‘kitten’ to her. Sollux saw and tried not to smile, too. The eternal guessing game of ‘irony or pet-name’ was something that practically everyone, not just Eridan and Feferi, were privy to. 

Karkat came over to the table, and Dave gave everyone a helping of greasy potatoes. “Gotta distribute them evenly. We’re communists in this house. Won’t take any shit from the bourgeoisie here. Looking at you, Ampora.”

“Ha,” Eridan said sarcastically. He took a bite of the potatoes, and said very not-sarcastically, “Fuck, these are good, Dave.”

“Listen, I know my hangovers.”

“So Dave,” Sollux said out of nowhere, “You and Karkat are fucking, right?”

Dave answered ‘yes’ at the same time that Karkat answered ‘fuck, no!’, which meant that still, nobody really knew. Then Dave said:

Damn, Sollux, you and Eridan are really big fuckin’ fans of awkward soup this morning, aren’t you? Next time you come over I’ll make sure I make a bowl of it before you even get here, you know, save you the trouble of stewing it up yourselves. Like, I’ll just start asking Kanaya over there a bunch of personal questions about her medical history or something and record all of her uncomfortable facial expressions for you guys to get a kick out of.

To which Sollux replied:

I appreciate that you’d do that for me, Dave.

Karkat, excited at the chance to abscond, went downstairs to let Terezi in. Eridan, intensely uncomfortable about the whole morning, finished his food and only stayed a few minutes after that. He took another Uber back, and got the same driver, who spent the ride trying to convince him of the validity of flat earth theory. Eridan spent the last half minute of the ride telling him off, because he has very little self control.

Sollux stayed at Karkat’s for about another hour. Once Eridan left, he wasted no time in saying, “So you guys are all really friends with that douche, huh?”

Feferi practically begged him not to judge so quickly, but Sollux laughed it all off. It’s weird, how that kind of thing works, because it was only three months later that Sollux sat alone in the cheap apartment he shared with two friends, distraught and wondering if he had fallen in love with Eridan Ampora. I guess that’s chance, for you, though.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny brain: erisol is bad because it has literally no basis in canon  
> Slightly bigger brain: erisol had a lot of canon potential even though hussie never followed through on it  
> Huge brain: even though they have few interactions eridan and sollux have compatible archetypes and dispositions that can be further explored through fanworks and headcanons  
> Giant galaxy brain: erisol is good because it has literally no basis in canon

It was after that morning in Karkat’s apartment when Sollux and Eridan both realized that they passed each other on campus quite often. They didn’t used to pay attention to each other, but after that morning they’d gotten into the habit of making intense eye contact and not saying anything. The first time, Eridan waved, but Sollux didn’t wave back, so they didn’t do that anymore. They just stared.

When he was with someone else when they saw each other, whether they knew Eridan or not, Sollux would say something like:  
That guy’s a douche, right?  
I can’t believe he’s rich as shit but still dresses like a seven year old who’s finally allowed to make his own outfits for school  
Okay, I know I’m one to fucking talk, but his voice is the most annoying goddamn thing

At one point, Feferi said to Aradia over lunch, “I should’ve known this would happen. Stupid me, I thought they’d be friends.”

Aradia smiled. She had a ghostly way of smiling- beautiful, but just a little bit empty. Her smile was like the most unassuming house guest. “They’re too alike in the absolute worst possible ways.” She dug a little bit at the dirt in her nails and then added, “And besides, you know Sollux. Once he decides he hates something, which doesn’t take much at all, he fixates on it. He gets perverse, masturbatory joy out of concentrated negativity.”

Feferi rolled her eyes. “You know, I hate that you’re right. Eridan- he’s. I don’t know. I think he just likes eeling sorry for himself.”

“See? It’s lucky they didn’t meet before now. Fire and gasoline situation.”

Feferi looked around, uncomfortable with the knowledge that she had orchestrated and insisted upon the meeting. “I think we should really do something about it. Make them get along.”

Aradia shrugged. Their waiter (an acquaintance of theirs, actually, John the dorky accounting major) brought out their food. “Thanks, John- I think we should just let them be. They’ll get tired of it soon, and you know neither of them take well to being forced into being nice to people.”

Aradia was referring to these two situations, specifically:  
Terezi set Sollux up on a blind date, once, against his will, because she thought he needed to get out more. The date left within 40 minutes, because Sollux would not stop espousing the theory that the pictures from the NASA moon landing were faked, and the moon is instead a government hideout. She left at the point when he began saying that Amelia Earhart hadn’t actually crashed and died, but that the government had hidden her in the moon, which they had been secretly terraforming for several decades at that point. He said, when Terezi asked him why the hell he had driven her away, that he was fundamentally opposed to things like blind dates, and thought he’d show Terezi how he felt by alienating his date as much as he could. (She forgave him for it almost immediately, laughing, and asked if he would have prefered a sighted date next time.)  
Eridan was going with Feferi to meet one of her friends, once, and Feferi told him he should be nice, or give her a compliment to make a good impression. He told the friend that her sweater looked very ‘...affordable’. She didn’t take well to that. (Feferi held that stunt against him for a month.)

Feferi thanked John too, then she put her face in her hands. “This is stupid.”

That was the same day that Sollux had taken to ranting to Karkat about how much he disliked Eridan Ampora.

“I mean, who fucking dresses like that, right? If you have more money than the rest of us combined at least have the decency to dress well, right?”

Karkat was close to screaming, but he didn’t, because they were actually in the library. “What is it with you and this guy, dude? You met him fucking one, and all he did was make fun of your stupid lisp. Is this your way of telling me you’re into him? I can set you guys up if you stop being so goddamn annoyingly cagey about it. Or is irrational hatred the only way you can get aroused anymore? In that case, I’d like to refer you to a therapist, instead of just watching you pathetically jack yourself off everyday to hating this guy you met once.”

Sollux, who was used to Karkat's vulgarity and Freudian assumptions, laughed it off. “C’mon, I know you’re like this, too. You just meet someone sometimes and they just… get under your skin? I know you, KK. You’re the fucking champion of useless rage.”

“Okay, yeah, I mean, yeah, but you know Eridan’s legitimately my friend, right? And I just know it fucks with Feferi to know that you loathe him as much as you do.”

“Why? It’s not FF’s fault that the guy who follows her around all the time just straight up blows.”

“I think she feels responsible for him.”

“Hm. That’s dumb.”

Karkat looked back at his book. “This is why I didn’t introduce you and him sooner, I could’ve seen this a mile away. But I thought, no, they’re fucking twenty years old, they can handle having breakfast with each other without going for each other’s jugulars like a couple of hyenas on the the goddamn savana scavenging for any vulnerable fucking jugulars they can get at, no, they can be fucking civil to each other. Guess me and Feferi were fucking wrong.”

Here’s something that happened with Feferi and Karkat, the two people who actually hung out with both Sollux and Eridan a considerable amount, during Freshman year:  
They agreed they wouldn’t introduce Eridan and Sollux to each other

Here’s something that happened the morning at Karkat’s apartment:  
Feferi insisted that they invite Eridan, because he was probably in desperate need of hangover food  
Karkat agreed

Sollux raised an eyebrow. He’s one of those guys that can raise just one when he wants to. “Wait, you and FF had, like, a pact to keep us apart? Don’t get me wrong, that’s hilarious, but why?”

“Because you’re just two variations of the same huge asshole!”

“Hey, wait, fuck you for that.”

Karkat shrugged. “Hey, take it from a person who actually knows both of you, instead of someone who, I don’t know, built their entire conception of a person off of a five minute meeting when you were both hungover. Yeah, what do I know.”

Sollux punched him lightly on the arm and kept studying.

Eridan had considerably more anxiety about the whole thing than Sollux did. For Sollux, as you might have guessed, the whole thing was a game. He was prepared to hate on Eridan mercilessly for about another month, and then move on to the next shitty thing he found. Eridan, however, took it as a personal affront. He brought it up with Dave over coffee.

Dave and Eridan were casual acquaintances, at best. Here is why Dave agreed to join Eridan for coffee:  
Eridan said he would pay for both coffees, and a muffin if Dave wanted one  
Dave is not rich  
Dave likes free shit

“I don’t know, I mean, Halloweekend was bad for me, okay? Everyone has bad weekends, and he just fuckin’ came for me out of nowhere. And I didn’t have nothin’ to counter it with except, you know the lisp. Now he definitely hates me.”

“Nah. Sollux gets over this kind of stuff. He’s just loves to hate shit. It’s nothing personally against you.”

“I wish he didn’t hate me, though. There’s plenty a’ better stuff to hate. Plenty a’ worse people.”

Dave shrugged. “You were there at the wrong time and said the wrong thing.” Dave raised his cup to take a drink. The cup said ‘Lady Chatterley’. His half-sister worked as a barista, and he would always come in and give her a ridiculous name of a character or historical figure with full knowledge that she would write down the name of a character (often from classical literature) or figure she thought suited him better that day. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Honestly? Feferi’s all worked up about it, but I’m not. I think you guys are just gonna end up fucking or something. Who knows?”

“I don’t but I also do know we’re not gonna fuckin’ hook up.”

You’ve probably read enough of these things to know that they will, in fact, hook up, at some point or another over the course of the next thirteen chapters. But it’s no fun if we just start there. So at this point, Sollux hates Eridan for no real reason except that he decided that it was fun to do so, and Eridan feels desperately inadequate because of it, even though it was partially his fault for being a dick in the first place. That went on for about a week after Halloweekend. After that, Eridan finally managed to make a decent impression on Sollux Captor. It happened on a bus.

Dave said, “Okay,” and finished his coffee. He asked if Eridan wanted to buy him another, to which Eridan just said, “Dude.” 

“Okay, okay, whatever, I knew that was kind of a stretch. But seriously, Eridan, just wait a hot sec with Sollux. He’s a weird guy, you know, always changing his shit up. You’re not going to be the object of his cathartic hatred forever.” Dave tapped on the cup for a minute, then adjusted his shades, thinking. “And you know, on the off-chance you run into him again, it wouldn’t hurt to just apologize about the lisp thing. It might not fix this, but he’d probably appreciate it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones a little short, but dw its the shortest one

The next time Eridan saw Sollux was on a bus headed into the city. Eridan couldn’t take an Uber, because the flat earth driver had filed a false complaint (that was still being investigated) which said Eridan had tried to instigate a physical fight in the car. Sollux was riding the bus because what kind of rich asshole rides an uber all the way into the city? Sollux was wearing headphones because he didn’t want to be bothered, but Eridan sat next to him and bothered him anyways. This is the kind of music Sollux Captor likes:  
“A little bit of everything except country”  
Sometimes classic rock  
Sometimes classic punk  
A lot of music from the 90s  
Newer music, too, but not as often  
He doesn’t have a favorite band, but if you asked him he would say probably it’s Nirvana  
He doesn’t really have a favorite song, either, but if you asked him he might say Drain You (Nirvana) or Disorder (Joy Division), depending on the day  
If he’s having a really strange day, he might even tell you it’s Paranoid Android (Radiohead)

This is the kind of music Eridan Ampora likes:  
None of that stuff  
Actually, strike that  
Maybe Radiohead now and again  
Their older stuff, mostly

They sat quietly next to each other for a minute. Sollux wanted to ignore Eridan, and Eridan was anxious about talking first. Here are some things Eridan thought about saying as they sat in silence:  
Sorry for makin’ fun of your stupid lisp, but you shouldn’t have made fun of me for gettin’ trashed on Halloweekend. You know a lot of people get trashed on Halloweekend.  
Why do you hate me so much? I only said one stupid thing to you when I was hungover.  
What are you listenin’ to?  
Did you know Dave Strider thinks we’re goin’ to hook up?  
Do you know what’s going on with Dave and Karkat? I was still mad at you, but I thought what you said the other morning about them was hilarious.

Chance intervened as Eridan was about to say one of those dumb things, and he caught a glimpse of what Sollux was listening to. It was that old song he heard Karkat play at the party.

“That’s a pretty good song,” he said.

“You like Nirvana?” Sollux asked.

“Yeah.” Eridan only knew that one song.

“Yeah? What other songs by them do you like?”

“Okay, I only know that one song. But I like that one song.”

That’s about when the switch clicked. Instead of saying something incredibly mean, like he could’ve, Sollux said, “You’ve never even heard Smells like Teen Spirit?” Against all reason, he had found it incredibly endearing that Eridan had lied about liking the band Sollux was listening to. You don’t lie like that to someone you’re not trying, at least in some capacity, to impress. He hadn’t quite gotten bored of hating Eridan Ampora yet, but had decided then to cut his hatred a little bit short for his and everyone else’s sake.

“Nope. Think I’ve heard the name, is all. That’s their good one, right?”

Sollux shrugged. “I like it. It’s catchy, but not their best. Here-”

Sollux handed him an earbud, which Eridan took tentatively. Usually, he had a thing about sharing earbuds, but decided to take it, because he didn’t want to fuck up whatever tentative truce they had just magically come to. 

Eridan caught a few words of Come As You Are before Sollux switched the song. These are the lyrics he heard:

No, I don’t have a gun. No, I don’t have a gun.

Sollux was right about the song. It was catchy, but he liked the other one better.

About halfway into the song, Eridan said, “I’m sorry for makin’ fun of your stupid fuckin’ lisp when I was hungover last weekend.”

Sollux almost folded himself in half laughing at that. At one point, he started wheezing.

“Okay, what’s so funny?”

“You think no one’s ever made fun of my lisp before? Please.” He emphasized the lisp and said it again. “Pleathe.” There’s a lot of weird shit about Sollux Captor. He’s gotten used to leaning into it. He’s still doesn’t like when other people make fun of him for it, though.

“Still sorry about bein’ a douche to you. I mean you kind of made fun of me for getting really crossed at that party, but still. There were a lot of classier ways I could’a retorted.”

Sollux laughed even harder. “That might be just about the most passive aggressive apology I’ve ever gotten.” He collected himself. A woman on the other side of the bus had been staring, because he was laughing so loudly. “But how’s this for you: I’m sorry for calling attention to just how fucked up you got at the party. I mean, Christ, dude. I wasn’t even making fun of you for it. Just... you looked like you were on another plane of existence than the rest of us.”

Eridan said, thoughtfully, “Can’t blame a guy for wantin’ to take off from this shithole of a planet once in awhile.”

“You know, that’s definitely unhealthy but I sort of get what you mean.”

“So you don’t hate me anymore, right?”

“Eh. Never really did, at least not really. You know KK- Karkat, now that’s a guy who can really fucking hate stuff. He’s a never ending well of rage. I’m not quite like that. I just make fun of shit.”

Eridan pursed his lips. “That’s sort of a relief, I guess.” The song was over. Sollux’s music had moved onto something new that he apparently didn’t care enough to introduce. Without warning, he yanked the earbud out of Eridan’s ear and wrapped the headphones around his phone.

“This is my stop.”

“Oh. Bye,” Eridan said.

“See ya,” Sollux said. He waved.

They started waving when they saw each other on campus after that, too. Sollux was with Karkat once when it happened.

As they passed, Karkat said, “So what happened to your eternal hatred of that guy?”

“I got bored of it.”

Karkat half smiled, but was trying not to. “You know it’s kind of sick that you hate people for fun, don’t you?”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“I know you don’t.” Karkat shook his head. “Whatever, dude. Glad you’re over this one.”

So it was purely by chance that Eridan finally made a good impression, but I do like to think there was something more that brought them together after that. But if there was, it’s hard to tell you exactly what it was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forgot this chapter is short as fuck too and i probably wont be able to update again until new years so im just gonna go ahead and upload the next two

Rose Lalonde had decided, on a whim, over tea with her girlfriend, that she was going to have a party before Thanksgiving break.

It was when she was brewing tea at the stove that she said:

So you’ve been twenty-one for two weeks now, dear.

“That’s a interesting conversation starter, even for you.”

Rose smiled. “I was just thinking, were we to host a party together, we have the means now to make it a classy affair. I don’t know how many parties I’ve been to where the only options were cheap vodka shots and flat Rum and Cokes.”

Kanaya said fondly, “Do you remember when you and Dave both got your fakes taken away at Target? When you were trying to make preparations for wine night?”

“Yes, that was… incredibly unfortunate.”

“Did you have a situation in mind, for which you would like me to buy you classy legal alcohol?”

The tea kettle whistled, and Rose turned off the stove. Kanaya got up to assist in pouring, even though it wasn’t really necessary for her to do that. 

“I was thinking you and I should host a party. Or, a get together, really. I’ve been looking forward to doing things like that, instead of relying of frat parties for our kicks.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed.” Kanaya pulled her in for a kiss, gently. “You’re apartment, my alcohol, if I’m understanding correctly?”

“I believe you’ve understood correctly.” They let go of one another, and started to pour the tea. It was Kukicha- green tea- a brand they found at a local shop that they found they liked. “As long as Jade’s okay with it, of course.” Jade, being Rose’s roommate. But you probably could’ve assumed.

That was the beginning of how all of their friends ended up with absurdly beautiful and intricate hand-delivered invitations on the Wednesday before they had their party. Eridan ended up with his a few hours later than everyone else. Kanaya told Rose they should wait to invite him until she made a phone call.

The phone call was to Karkat. It went like this:  
Rose and I are having a party at her apartment.  
I know, I got the invitation.  
Under the assumption that we have already invited Sollux, would you say that it is safe to invite Eridan as well?  
Yeah. Sollux dropped his whole thing with that.  
Okay. Thank you for your time, Karkat.  
Yeah. Bye, then.  
Goodbye.

You would probably assume, since they invited Sollux first, that Rose and Kanaya like him better than Eridan. The simple answer is: yes, they do. The complicated answer is: Eridan hit on Rose one unfortunate weekend in freshman year, made a complete asshole out of himself, and he still hasn’t completely recovered from it in either of their favors.

They still liked him enough to invite him after they got the go ahead, though.

Sollux and Eridan ran into each other again at the Starbucks in the student union on Thursday morning. They were both waiting in line to buy coffee.

“Hey,” Eridan said tentatively. It felt like a situation where more than a wave was required. He was never sure about those things. 

Sollux looked up from his phone. He’s always looking at his phone. “Oh. Hey. What’s up?”

“Sure is getting cold out.”

Sollux pushed his eyebrows together. “It’s November.”

“Oh? That’s probably why.”

Sollux smiled. “Dude.”

“I’m shit at small talk.”

“I can fucking tell.”

“Are you gonna be at Rose and Kanaya’s thing this weekend?” He figured since they seemed to run in sort of the same circles, it couldn’t hurt to ask. 

“Wait they’re having a thing?”

“Oh-”

“Can’t believe they didn’t invite me.”

“Oh, fuck sorry, I thought-”

Sollux started laughing. “Ha, I’m just fucking with you. Yeah, I think I’m going. I really got you. You looked so distraught just now. Classic.”

Here’s another fact about Eridan:  
He’s fairly gullible, mostly because he’s so prone to self-doubt

And here’s one about Sollux that you probably could’ve already guessed:  
He absolutely loves to mess with people

Here’s something you might not have guessed about Sollux:  
It’s all just an incredibly complex defense mechanism

Eridan said, “You know, Karkat told me you were invited. I didn’t fall for it.”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t!”

“Okay.” Sollux looked down and shook his head. “I’m going, just so you know. It sounds fun. Rose and Kanaya- they’re classy as all hell, don’t get me wrong, but they’re also crazy fun. But like, classy fun.”

Eridan smirked. “What’s ‘classy fun’?”

“You get drunk as shit, but Rose and Kanaya know where all the alcohol you’re drinking was imported from if you let them sniff it.”

“I see.”

Eridan was still kind of out of it when Sollux shooed him forward.

“Can I help you?”

“Dude, you’re next.”

“Oh, shit, sorry. I’ll have a tall caramel macchiato, skim milk, extra hot, extra shot, no whip, but extra caramel.”

Sollux laughed.

“Can I pay for his, too?” Eridan pointed back to Sollux, still laughing, and handed the cashier his credit card.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” He craned his head around and looked at Sollux, “What’re you having?”

Sollux, confused but not opposed to the whole thing, said, “Just, like… coffee. Black coffee.”

“Tall?”

“Is that the small one?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, tall, then.”

“Order of the hour, dude,” the cashier said. He had Eridan pay, and they both stepped to the edge of the counter to wait.

“So what was that about?”

Eridan pulled out his phone. He was running late for class, but didn’t care that much. “I knew you were gonna say some shit tellin’ me how extra my Starbucks order is, like I’ve never heard that before, so I thought, fuck it, I’ll just be as extra as possible.”

“Seriously? You’re too much.”

“I know.” He paused. “That’s my image. Too much.”

“Tall coffee?”

Sollux went up to the counter and grabbed it. “Thanks.”

The barista didn’t hear him. 

“Okay, I have class in ten. Thanks for the coffee, though, even though it was kind of… extra.”

Eridan didn’t even look up. “See ya Saturday.” He only bothered to look at Sollux as he was leaving. He thought, just like he did at the Halloween party, that he liked Sollux’s hair. He didn’t forget about it that time, though.

He was six minutes late to class, but nobody noticed. Nobody would’ve cared anyways. They all wished they came late with Starbucks, too, and couldn’t’ve blamed him for it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made two vine references in this trainwreck of a chapter here they are  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwAajOtfNT8  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzSVmsrJEzk

I’ll tell you right now: this is the chapter you’ve spent the last 8 thousand or so words anticipating. This is the chapter about Rose and Kanaya’s party, where Rose provided the space, and Kanaya provided the alcohol. Well, Rose paid her back for half of the alcohol, but Kanaya was the one who bought it, legally. It happened in the second weekend of November.

Here’s how the place looked:  
They turned off the main lights  
They had ‘mood lights’ strung up around all the rooms  
They had secured a cardboard cutout of the University president, somehow, because they thought it would be hilarious  
Most of the guests who didn’t find it creepy agreed that it was hilarious  
They had a mini-bar set up in the kitchen with a bunch of classy legal alcohol laid out  
Dave had insisted on being the bartender  
Dave had also tried to insist on making a playlist for the night, but Rose and Kanaya took that into their own hands  
They played music one could only describe as “artsy”  
They put up a few vaguely Wintery decorations, but agreed that it wasn’t a Christmas party, in the traditional sense  
They did have peppermint schnapps, though, which is arguably one of the most Christmassy alcohols

Dave came before anyone else, four minutes before the party technically started, and said, standing at the door to Rose and Jade’s apartment, “Well, what’s a classy party without the bartender? It’d just be a free for all without me. Before you knew it everyone would be clawing their eyes out to get the last of your peppermint schnapps. Yeah. You’re lucky I’m here so early.”

They let him in, and Kanaya said, “Where is Karkat?”

Rose covered her laugh with her hand. Dave went behind the counter and started looking at all of the alcohols and mixers they had. It was quite a nice selection. He started to mix himself a simple gin and tonic with lemon. “What, we’re a set now?” he asked, bemused.

Rose said, “Coy isn’t as good of a look on you as you’ve lead yourself to believe.”

Dropping in a lemon slice, he said, “If you want to know the truth, I just think it’s funny to watch everyone guessing. You’re all falling over each other wondering if me and Karkat are a thing, and I think it’s great.”

“Noted,” Kanaya said.

They started talking about the cardboard cutout, then. It was meant to be a conversation piece, after all. 

Terezi arrived with Vriska about five minutes after the party technically started. They knew that would happen. They’re both eager party-goers, and the excitement is amplified when they go somewhere together. Jade creeped out of her room once John (her half-brother) showed up, bottle of wine in hand (procured from an older friend). He thought it was the courteous thing to bring wine to a party.

It went like that for a while. I think it would be tiresome if I listed everyone who showed up, in order. There were about 22 people in the apartment at the party’s peak. This may just be a silly hunch, but I highly doubt you’re interested in me telling you exactly which minor background character showed up and when, and what they were wearing, and what funny ironic quip they shared with another slightly less minor background character.

Sollux showed up with Aradia and their other roommate, Tavros, about a half hour into the party. Sollux and Aradia had baked a pie for the occasion because they thought it would be hilarious to bring a pie to an occasion like a party, and Sollux was surprisingly familiar with the culinary arts. It was an apple pie, because that was the most low-effort recipe they could find online. Reports from party-goers would indicate that the pie was actually pretty good, but drunk people are prone to find the good in most edible things you put in front of them. (Terezi, alone, ate about a quarter of it, and claimed that it was the best thing she had ever eaten.) Rose took care to place the pie next to the cardboard cutout. (Aradia was in the camp that thought the cutout was hilarious, Sollux found it more disconcerting.)

About five minutes after they arrived Sollux found himself being pulled into a hug by Gamzee, the local huge fucking stoner. “Solbro! What’s hangin?”

“Uh, you know. The usual. I guess.”

Here is the reason why Gamzee hugged Sollux:  
Sollux had given him money for weed the week before  
Gamzee wanted an excuse to slip weed into his pocket

Sollux understood that part fine. Here’s the piece he never quite figured out:  
Nobody would’ve given a shit if Gamzee just handed him a bag of weed  
Terezi, with everyone’s knowledge, had already smoked half a joint out the bathroom window

He just chalked it up to Gamzee being kind of a weird dude. He hugs people all the time, even if he doesn’t have weed to give them. He laughed it off and said, “Thanks,” before he and Aradia went to get drinks.

“You guys want Moscow Mules?” Dave asked when they got to the counter.

“What?”

“Yeah. Rose has copper mugs and everything. I think she might have ordered them just for this occasion. No one’s thought to ask for one, yet. I want to try making it.”

“Sure, I’ll take one,” Sollux said.

“Just a beer for me,” Aradia said.

“Beer?” Dave said as he handed her a PBR, “how frat of you.”

“What can I say? I’m a girl of simple taste.”

She patted Sollux’s shoulder and went off to join the rest of the party. They had all started dancing to “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at Rose And Kanaya’s Definitely Not Christmas Party.

“I hate Christmas music, actually,” Sollux said as Dave was making his drink.

“You? Really? Hating something fun and light-hearted? I never would have guessed. The Sollux I know would be out there lipsinking this song with Aradia and hopping around like a drunk and festive asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rose and Kanaya didn’t put this on their playlist, did they?”

Sollux caught him shoot a look towards Karkat. “Of course not.”

“You’re stupidly adorable with him, you know.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Dave mouthed the title line. Karkat pretended to look annoyed through a smile. Dave gave the drink a stir and handed it off to Sollux. “Tell me how it is, okay?”

Sollux took a sip. “Much better than I would’ve expected, no offense.”

“Hey, none taken.”

“Want a sip?”

“Sure, thanks.” Dave took a short sip, then contemplated. “Yeah, okay. That’s pretty good for a first try.”

“Yeah. You should feel good about this one.”

“Such high praise from the likes of Sollux hardass Captor.”

“Hey, once in awhile it’s well-deserved. What can I say?”

They watched Rose spring to the door to let Feferi and Eridan inside. They watched Feferi hug Rose and Eridan hang up his scarf.

“C’mon,” Sollux said to Dave, “who the fuck wears a scarf when he knows he’s going to a party?”

“Thought you were done hating that guy?”

“Eh… I mean, mostly. He’s just an absurdly easy target. Being nice is hard, sometimes. For real, who wears a scarf to a party? What did he think he was gonna do with that, wear it around all night, making a fashion statement?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Why don’t you bring him a drink and ask?”

Here’s why Dave said that:  
He had discussed his theory that Sollux and Eridan would hook up with Karkat  
Karkat thought it was the most ridiculous prediction he had ever heard  
Dave was eager to see Karkat’s reaction if they actually did  
He thought a drink and a conversation might move things along

“Bring him a drink? What am I, a 43 year old divorcee at a dive bar?”

“Okay, sorry for suggesting that you be nice. Look, okay, he’s coming over anyways.”

“Hey, Dave. Sollux.”

“Hey.”

“What’s your drink? Pick your poison.”

Eridan scanned the drink selection. “Do you have chocolate syrup?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why? You wanted a shot of that?’

“No, well, sort of. You take a shot of peppermint schnapps and someone squirts chocolate syrup in your mouth before you swallow.” He looked at Sollux and added, “Fun n’ festive.”

“Sure sounds like it,” Dave said. “I can probably make you something with the schnapps, though.”

“That’s fine. Still festive.”

“This isn’t a Christmas party, you know,” Sollux said.

“Maybe not. But it is the season. I can tell you’re not a fan.”

“Not so much.”

“That’s because he’s not a fan of anything.”

“I’m a fan of some things. You’ll just have to let me think for a minute.”

“Some video game, probably,” Dave said half-heartedly.

“Dave, you know I have a shit ton of video game opinions. Do you really want to get into that right now?”

“Whatever, dude. Eridan, here’s your drink. Hope it’s festive enough.”

Sollux ran his finger over his pocket. “Hey, Dave, you wouldn’t happen to have anything to roll with, would you?”

“Nah, dude. It’s a bartender’s duty to be alert at all times.”

“Dave, I’ve watched you down at least two G&Ts.”

“I said alert, not sober.”

“You mean, like, papers?” Eridan asked.

“Yeah.”

“I might have some in my jacket pocket.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, at least I think so.”

“You want a few hits, then? I mean, if you’re willing to provide the papers.”

Eridan said hesitantly, “... Sure.” He remembered last time, of course, he had ended up wasting an entire night and giving himself a killer hangover in a similar situation. But he was always terrible at denying offers like that.

It turned out he did have a few on him, he found that out digging through his coat pockets. Kanaya asked him if he was leaving already, to which he said, no, just looking for something.

Sollux asked Rose if he could smoke in the bathroom, just like Terezi did.

“No, I’m afraid not. Someone spilled on a drink on Equius, and he insisted upon taking a shower.”

“Wait, hold up, Equius is here? Horse guy? Horse fucker supreme?”

Rose smiled uncomfortably. “He’s a dear friend of Nepeta’s.”

“Is there anywhere else you wouldn’t mind us going, or should we just wait for him to be done?”

She tapped her chin. “Hm… you could do it from my bedroom, if you make sure to blow out the window. I trust you not to make a mess of it. You know where it is, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Lovely.” She coasted past him in one fluid motion to get another drink. She, too, asked for something with peppermint schnapps.

So that’s how Eridan and Sollux ended up alone in Rose’s bedroom, rolling shitty joints over a newspaper on her floor.

“GZ taught me how to roll. Can’t do it nearly as well as him.”

“Wait, Gamzee, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You know him too?”

“Mhmm.”

“Turns out we know all a’ the same fuckin’ people.”

Sollux smiled, still looking down at his half-finished joint. “Apparently it was a whole thing for KK and FF to keep us apart. A whole goddamn ordeal.”

“Really? That sounds dumb.”

“They thought we’d fight, you know, make their whole social network implode under the weight of our sheer jackassery.”

“Well, they weren’t completely wrong. You wouldn’t shut up about how much you hated me for, like, a whole week.”

“It was all in good fun.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Yeah. For me.” Sollux finished it off, then pulled a lighter from his back pocket. “Here. Start us off.”

Eridan fiddled with the lighter for a minute. Here’s a few facts about the lighter:  
Sollux had gotten it at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere during the Summer while he was on a roadtrip with an old friend  
The lighter said “Free by birth, Trucker by choice” over a waving American flag decal  
It was one of Sollux’s most cherished possessions, and still is  
It’s out of fluid now but he keeps it on display in his apartment

“You know, this’ll sound dumb, but I can never get these cheap things to light for me. I don’t know how to do it right.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah, dude.”

“C’mere.”

Eridan leaned over the newspaper, and Sollux lit up the joint for him, in one motion, like it was the only thing he knew how to do.

Eridan took a deep breath, exhaled out the window, coughed half a lung up, and said, “So what’s the deal with those glasses? They’re weird as shit.”

Sollux started to roll another joint. “So are my eyes.”

“Yeah?” He took another hit instead of passing it.

“Yeah.”

“You ever take the glasses off?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Okay, then.” Eridan leaned up against the wall and stared out the window. He thought he looked artsy, but he really looked like any other college kid getting stoned next to an acquaintance’s window. “Do you want a hit?”

“One sec-” Sollux finished the second joint,, and handed that to Eridan, too. “We’ll trade.”

“You wanted to smoke ‘em both?”

“Yeah, maybe. Thought I’d just roll two.”

“Okay,”

Sollux scooted closer and took a drag out the window. He took another one without handing it off. After that, they handed it off pretty consistently until the whole thing burned down. Eridan coughed way more than Sollux did.

Then Sollux, sort of feeling the effects already, said, “You wanna… smoke the other one?”

“God, yes.”

And they did, in the same way that they smoked the first. Sollux tried to blow smoke rings, but he ended up making himself cough harder than Eridan ever did. They put it out on the windowsill once it had burned down.

Eridan laid down on the ground once they were done. “I don’t want to go back out to the party. ‘S probably loud.” They could hear the music in Rose’s bedroom like a dull murmur.

Sollux laid down on the ground, too. “Fuck, dude, why did we think it was a good idea to smoke two again?”

“It was your idea!”

“Yeah, but you weren’t eager to stop me.”

It could’ve been a fight, but they just started laughing instead.

“What?” Eridan asked.

“Thinking of Dave’s webcomic. Have you read that?”

“Yeah. I don’t… get it.”

“There’s-” Sollux collapsed onto the floor laughing, “there’s nothing to get! I warned you about stairs, bro!”

Eridan got up.

“Where are you going?”

He fell backwards onto the bed. “Here. Don’t wanna lay on a hardwood floor anymore. Not comfortable.”

“Hm.”

“You wanna come too? It’s a hell of a lot better ‘n the floor.”

“Eh… wouldn’t that be weird?”

“Two bros chillin’ in a bedroom five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.”

“What?”

“Dude, it’s a vine. You don’t know that one? Two bros, chillin’ in a hot tub five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay. That’s you right now.”

“What?”

“You’re high as shit. I’ll just show it to you.”

“I don’t want to stand up.”

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“Just, like… just stand up. It’s better when you’re not on the fuckin’ floor. It’s so much better, Sol.”

It took a few minutes but Sollux got the strength to stand up and walk over to Rose’s bed. “Can you show me the vine now?”

Eridan pulled it up on his phone. It took him a while to find it; he made a lot of typos and typed slowly. Sollux laughed at him. 

“Wait… play it again. That was short.”

He played it again.

“That’s pretty funny.”

“I think about that one a lot.”

Sollux started laughing.

“What?”

“Dave and KK are definitely a thing. I think… I think they are.”

“Yeah?”

“He put on a Christmas song for him.”

“That’s cute.”

Sollux looked up at the ceiling.

Eridan said, “You ever think about… what it would be like… to fall into a wormhole?”

“What about it?”

“Like, could you fall in, n’ then come out fine on the other side? In another universe or somethin’? A parallel universe?”

“A universe where I wear scarves all the time and you don’t.”

“Maybe. Probably not. There’s… there’s a lot a’ different ones.”

“More likely you’d go through one and you end up far, far away, but in the same universe. Or else… it just collapses on you. Ha, that’s probably what would happen. It’d crunch you up. Or maybe it would stretch you out into a million pieces. I don’t know astrophysics that well.” He started running his hand across the comforter, which was soft. “‘M more of a computers guy.”

“I don’t know shit about either.”

Sollux was too busy with the comforter to respond.

“I heard… I think I read one time, that if you fall into a black hole, you don’t really die, but you get stretched out and stay there forever.”

“Doesn’t sound right.”

“Probably isn’t. Wasn’t sayin’ it was. I just read it. Besides, you said you don’t know shit about space either.”

“Yeah. I bet I know more than you, though.”

“Thanks.”

“You think it’s quiet in a black hole, or loud?”

“I think it might be like hearin’ people talk to you while you’re sittin’ in a fishbowl.”

“That’s what the music sounds like.”

“Now?”

“Now.” Sollux added, “It sounds like we’re in a fishbowl right now, and everyone else is outside. I bet it’s trippy as hell to be a fish.”

Eridan started laughing.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Thinking of another vine.”

“Yeah?”

“The one where the guy says ‘what’s better than this? Guy’s bein’ dudes.’”

“Wait, fuck, I’ve seen that one.” He started laughing too.

“That one’s also on my mind a lot.” Eridan looked out the window. “Do you think people are wonderin’ where we are?”

“Honestly? I have no fucking idea how long we’ve even been in here. For all I know the party’s over, and it’s Christmas already. Or maybe it’s only been five minutes. Time is completely unreal.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. Just. It’s not real.” He finally stopped rubbing his hand on the comforter, because he’d gotten tired of the texture.

“Dave thinks we’re having sex, I bet.”

“What?”

“He told me last week he thought we’d hook up.”

“Fuck-”

“Yeah that’s. That’s what he thought.”

“Don’t see how that would work. Dave’s crazy as shit.”

“Just like… theoretically, I mean, strictly theoretically-”

“Two dudes chillin’ on a bed five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.”

“Okay, yeah, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

That made Sollux laugh harder than he had laughed at anything all week. “No homo but I wouldn’t mind hooking up with you, bro. No homo.”

“That’s not what I meant-”

“Yeah, okay. Okay.” Then Sollux said, almost without missing a beat, “Did you know, I found a subreddit one time filled with people who think that Amelia Earhart didn’t go missing, but the government put her on the moon?”

Eridan said urgently, “Some people are fuckin’ batshit.”

“I think it’s funny.”

“It’s not funny if you ever meet one of those stupid assholes. Still banned from Uber over flat-earth.”

“That sentence you just said like someone… just… drew random words out of a hat and desperately tried to string them together to make a comprehensible thought.”

“Maybe that’s what happens with all thoughts. Everything’s… Everything’s ridiculous and random, so why not spend our time readin’ up on flat-earth and fuckin’... moon theories n’ shit? We’re all bullshittin’ our way through life.”

They got closer to one another, joining naturally, like magnets that had been forcibly pulled apart finally returning to one another.

Sollux said: What’s this?

Eridan said: I wanted to feel your hair.

Sollux said: That’s dumb.

Eridan ran his fingers through Sollux’s hair and said: Yeah, it is.

Sollux said: Weed makes everyone dumb as shit.

Eridan said: Yeah, isn’t it great?

Sollux said: I guess it is

They could’ve been further away from one another to feel each other’s hair, but they didn’t rectify the problem. In fact, neither of them really saw it as a problem, and they were paralyzed by their own realizations that they had no problem being wrapped up in one another. How disconcerting it is, to be young and discovering attraction in a fishbowl.

“Can I be honest?” Sollux said, “If you don’t mind?”

“I don’t fuckin’ care. Say whatever you want.”

“The more it’s bouncing around in my head I like the idea of falling into a black hole. Just spinning around forever, not dying, watching everything else fly by. I think that sounds comforting.”

“That’s dark.”

“Is it?”

“Most of us don’t find resignation comfortin’.”

“You like talking about wormholes and shit.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I like to think of hoppin’ out on the other side, not bein’ trapped forever in one.”

“KK was telling me last week that we’re really similar. I don’t think that’s true at all.”

“Really? I was just starting to think that we were.”

“Maybe we’re so different it wrapped around the world so we’re the same again.”

“That’s not right.” Eridan leaned his head up in the crook of Sollux’s neck and said, “The Earth’s flat. It’d just keep going on forever.”

Sollux started laughing. “Shut up.”

“No use in tryin’ to figure it out. Same or different, whatever. We’re just whatever we are.”

“You sound high as shit.”

“That’s ‘cause I am, asshole.”

They waited for a beat, silently, still tangled up together. They had both found a peculiarly blissful state in which their minds felt completely empty. Eridan leaned up to kiss his jawline.

“Jesus Christ,” Sollux said.

“What? Sorry, I thought-”

“No it’s not that it’s just-” Sollux sighed, “We’re gonna prove Dave right, aren’t we?”

“I… wasn’t thinkin’ about this in terms of Dave. You know. No… no winners and losers or anythin’. Just whatever.”

“God, you’re so right. What am I even talking about?” Sollux kissed back, this time on the lips. And it went on like that, awkwardly, hands and lips asking for tentative permission, and the other granting it. It was slow and lazy, and if you asked either of them about it they might have said they could feel the earth rotating around them while they stayed in place. 

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Eridan said, “If a black hole opened up right here, right now, I think I’d jump in with you.”

“That’s the stupidest, emptiest, most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

There was a knock on the door then, which brought them out of it. Eridan got up to answer it, Sollux thought briefly about jumping out the window.

“Hey, Rose.”

“Are you two okay in here? You’ve been gone for half an hour.”

“Really?” Sollux asked, “I thought it’d been at least five years already.”

Rose was pretty drunk. Here are a few things she thought about saying:  
How much did you guys smoke? It smells terrible in here.  
Did I interrupt something?  
Were you two about to hook up?  
Did you two already hook up?  
Are you aware that Dave can make brilliant mojitos?

Here’s what she said instead: “Were you two thinking of coming back to the party at any point?”

Sollux, still on the bed, said, “It’s so loud. I want to go to bed.”

Eridan got the idea in his head then that he was probably a lot less high than Sollux. He perceived himself as being much more sober than he actually was. Eridan took a breath in and out, completely exasperated.

Rose said, “I can call you an Uber.”

“Thanks.”

So Eridan offered to wait outside with him until the Uber was there. They were sitting on a bench outside Rose’s apartment complex. They were sitting fairly far apart. Eridan asked, “Are you alright?”

Sollux said, “Yeah. I should just get to bed. Two was… a mistake.” He smiled when he said ‘mistake’. 

“Do you want to listen to music?”

“Oh God, yes.”

Eridan fished out his phone and headphones. “What do you want to listen to?”

“I don’t know. You pick something.”

Eridan put on an old song by The National while they were waiting. Sollux almost fell asleep to it.

Eridan said, “Text me when you get back.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“Text someone, then.”

“Okay. I’m not helpless, ED. I’m just-” he started laughing, and seemed to lose his train of thought.

“Yeah.”

“You’re mad.”

“No?”

“Okay.”

A car was pulling up, and Eridan said, “Looks like your ride.”

“Yeah? Okay. You know… you know when you’re not sober but you have to pretend to be?’

“This is an Uber driver in a college town at 1 am. You don’t gotta pretend for shit.”

“Guess you’re right.”

“What do we do now?”

“Hm?’

“Like, saying goodbye. Do we… hug?”

“If you want.”

They hugged to say goodbye. It was awkward. It felt too close and incredibly distant. The driver rolled down the window and asked, “Sollux?”

Sollux said: Hell yeah it is

And he got in.

Eridan watched the car roll away and sat back down on the bench for a minute. He hung his head in his hands and said to himself, “Oh my God.” It was cold enough that the words fogged up. “What the fuck.”

Here are some things Eridan was thinking:  
Way to make it weird  
He’s gonna wake up and hate me  
Should’ve known he was that fucked up  
Shouldn’t’ve fuckin’ initiated anything  
Still think I’d jump into a black hole with him  
Christ, what was that?  
What about Fef?  
You’ve known him for what, two weeks?  
Desperate piece of shit  
Didn’t even have enough time to make it into something before you fuck it up  
Nice work, asshole  
Great job, Captain Lieutenant Asshole.

He finally said again, “Fuck,” and decided to go back inside. It was cold outside. As Sollux had so eloquently pointed out the week before, it was November. 

A few people cheered when Eridan came back in. He went to sit by the counter with Dave. He glanced down at a mojito on the counter and asked, “You still sober?”

“Hell no. Are you?”

“I mean… I think I’m coming back down.”

“Sollux was definitely gone. I could tell from the five minutes you guys were in here.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“You guys hooked up, right?”

“Is that what people think?”

“I don’t know. Nobody was talking about you guys for awhile. I bet most of them forgot you were even here.” Dave drummed his fingers on the counter and leaned over. “So did you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I think that’s code for: you did, but you feel like shit about it. You’re one of the worst fucking liars I’ve seen in my entire life.”

“Hm.”

Feferi came over to the counter and joined them. “Hey! Erifin! Haven’t see you all night, fishter!”

“Yeah, I got caught up.”

She looked at his eyes. “You’re high, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“He is,” Dave said, “he thinks he’s not.”

“It’s fuckin’ loud in here.”

“Listen, do you want to go home? I’m getting pretty tired.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Do you want to spend the night at my place?”

Eridan didn’t answer for a second. “Yeah.” He was thinking about wormholes again.

“Alright. Let’s go. Are you opposed to walking, or do you want to get an Uber?”

“It’s 1 am we should get an Uber.” He closed his eyes. “Can you call one? I’m still banned for flat-earth.”

Dave laughed. “He’s so fucking out of it.”

“But it’s true.”

Feferi touched his shoulder gently and called and Uber for them both. 

They said heartfelt goodbyes to the hostesses and went outside to wait on the same bench that Eridan and Sollux had been waiting on minutes before.

Feferi said, “I feel very good right now. I feel good.”

“‘M glad to hear, Fef.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m thinkin’ about… space.”

“That’s okay, tell me about it. I like space.”

Here’s a fact about Feferi:  
She’s short  
That night, sitting on the bench, her heels didn’t reach the ground

“I don’t know shit about it. I’m just thinkin’ of space, like… conceptually.”

“You’re so silly.”

He smiled a little bit, then he started crying.

“Oh, no, no, something’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

There were a lot of things going on in Eridan’s mind then. He felt like he was still in the fishbowl. He couldn’t articulate most of what he was feeling, so instead he said this:

There’s a whole group a’ people who think Amelia Earhart's in the moon, Fef.

And he kept sobbing, even in the backseat of the Uber while Feferi had a pleasant conversation with the driver. She let him sleep on her couch, and they didn’t say another word about it.

You have to understand, these things take time.


	7. Chapter 7

Eridan woke up the next morning definitely not hungover but still feeling bad about himself. He could smell Feferi making waffles; she was one of those friends that had a waffle maker.

“Fef?”

“Good morning! How are you eeling?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and mustered the strength to sit up. “Was I… cryin’ last night?”

“Uh… yes.”

“Did I tell you what it was about?”

“Something about people believing Amelia Earhart is in the moon?”

“Oh, yeah, now I remember. Fuck.”

“Oh! I got a text from Sollux last night, and he told me to tell you he got home alright. You were out by the time I got it, though.”

“That’s good.”

“Do you want a waffle?”

“Half of one, maybe.”

“Okay. I’ll start making you one.”

“Thank you.” He stood up and went to the counter, where he sat down.

“Amelia Earhart aside, did you have fun last night? I didn’t even know you and Sollux were fronds now. I thought things were still a little… uneasy.”

“We’re fine. ‘N you know everyone’s your fuckin’ frond with enough weed.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, I was hoping that you would say you two are fronds for reel. Not just people who hang out at parties.”

Eridan rubbed his temples even though his head didn’t actually hurt. “Yeah, well. That takes time ‘n shit.”

Feferi smiled. She has very white teeth. “I was planning on hosting Friendsgiving here, like I did last year. Maybe I’ll invite him, if you’re not opposed anymore.”

“Sure, go ahead. He’s an alright enough guy.”

She went and got retrieved the waffle from the waffle maker, then split it down the middle. While she was plating it, she said, “Oh, good. I think you two will reely get to be fronds if you sea each otter more often. It’s making me happy just to think about.”

“Everyone seems to think we’d be such great friends now that he’s done irrationally hatin’ me.”

Feferi brought him a plate, and sat down on the other side of the counter. “Well, Karkat and I had some ideas about how it would go down if you guys ever met. We thought, for a while at least, that you guys would just rip each otter’s eyes out. You know, you’re both kind of…” she covered her mouth while she smiled slightly, “you’re both kind of assholes.”

“Hey-”

“No, no, I mean it in the best possible way! I just mean… neither of you are great at-”

“Yeah okay, I get it Fef. You’re already in the hole don’t keep diggin’ deeper.”

“I’m sorry, I just mean you both have strong personalities. We thought you’d butt heads more than you did.”

“Hm.”

“And, well, we always thought if you didn’t make one another explode, you might actually be fronds.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe not.” Eridan took a bite of the waffle. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Here are a few things it might be useful to know about Eridan and Feferi, dealing particularly with Eridan’s (now former, then lingering) infatuation with Feferi:

They met when they were 12, and became instant friends  
Eridan fell in love with her when he was 14  
He told her that when he was 18  
Feferi rejected as gently as she could  
She felt indescribably awkward about it  
Eridan took the rejection surprisingly well  
His endgame was to try again after college  
For several stupid and convoluted reasons, he was absolutely convinced that would work out for him  
Perhaps the silliest reason was that he was convinced that they were meant to be together  
I say silliest, of course, because we have already discussed chance and the illusion of fate at length  
I also say silliest, because if people are molded like puzzle pieces, with their ridges sculpted by chance, it’s clear to us by now, and will become inevitably clearer, that Sollux would fit here much better  
Eridan had his own ideas about love and didn’t start thinking like that until around February of his junior year  
But I digress  
Two years after Feferi’s grand rejection, Eridan was still constantly trying to prove himself as worthy boyfriend material  
And that kind of thing, no matter how fucking stupid it is, can really wear you down  
He ran to Feferi’s apartment one night in February and told her, breathlessly, how he had finally fallen out of love with her

“Such a skeptic, tsk tsk.”

“You feelin’ alright? Not hungover or anything? I mean, you’re sure up early.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty okay. Not perfect, but you know, it was a party after all. Kanaya was really adamant about making people drinker water.”

“She’s a gem, ain’t she?”

“She really is.”

“I’m glad you’re feelin’ alright.” 

He left Feferi’s after they finished their waffles and talked about nothing for about ten more minutes. He walked home because, as you’re well aware by now, the whole Uber thing still hadn’t worked itself out. He thought that he could get some homework done because he wasn’t actually hungover, but he found himself incredibly distracted. Here’s what Eridan was thinking as he stared blankly at an outline he had created for a political science class:

I can’t believe Sollux and I got high and made out.

So in another tab he opened up Facebook and started stalking Sollux’s profile. He barely ever posted, but people tagged him in things a lot. Some friends whose names Eridan mostly didn’t recognize shared stupid memes on his wall. Dave shared one that was actually kind of funny, but Eridan got a hunch that there was some joke attached to it he wasn’t actually getting. That’s how it always was with Dave. Eridan slowly decided that although Sollux wasn’t necessarily a teen heartthrob, he wasn’t unattractive. His appearance had a kind of charm that was difficult for Eridan to articulate. He hovered over the Send Friend Request button for 45 seconds before closing the tab. He reopened the tab, then he reclosed the tab. He wrote two sentences of his polisci paper. He opened Facebook again and sent Sollux a message request, not a friend request. Here’s what he was thinking when he did that:

Shouldn’t be too casual with this guy.

He started working on his paper again, and wrote exactly five sentences. He got a notification from the other tab:

Sollux Captor has sent you a friend request

He got another notification from the same tab:

2o you’d jump iinto a black hole wiith me but cant send me a fuckiing facebook friiend reque2t. I 2ee. 

Here’s how the rest of the conversation went, rapidly back and forth, with few interruptions:

EA: sorry you knoww i wwasnt really sure how to proceed  
EA: not bein stoned and all

SC: dude ii was just fuckiing around ii dont really giive a 2hiit.  
SC: iif you wanted two talk though ii thought we 2hould do iit on friiendly term2.  
SC: facebook friiend2ly term2.

EA: howw civil of you

SC: 2o.

EA: so

SC: you were the one who me22aged me.  
SC: what2 up? 

EA: ivve been thinkin about last night

SC: de2perate two forget or de2perate two go back?

EA: okay,  
EA: more like ivve just been mildly uncomfortable about it all mornin

SC: okay yeah a2 much a2 iim jokiing about iit me two.

EA: and you knoww fef is under the impression noww that wwere just like best fuckin buds or some shit

SC: oh my god.

EA: so i wwas thinkin lets just  
EA: lets take all of last night collect it up and just hit the delete button

SC: that 2ound2 good iin theory but the thiing about thiings that 2ound good in theory ii2 that theyre hardly ever po22iible in real life.  
SC: that2 why we 2ay thiing2 liike that 2ounds good in theory and not ju2t oh that 2ounds good.

EA: hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

SC: are you broken?

EA: its wweird enough havving an awkward semi-hookup wwith someone but its SO much wworse wwhen theyre in your immediate friend group

SC: iit2 only weiird iif you make iit weiird.

EA: thanks

SC: iim 2eriiou2. there2 nothiing that 2hould be iinherently weiird about thii2. iit2 ju2t emotiion2 youre projectiing on the 2iituatiion that2 makiing iit weiird.

EA: thanks shitmund freud

SC: hey all iim 2ayiing ii2 that thii2 wiill be a lot wiierder than iit ha2 two be iif you keep iin2ii2tiing on makiing iit wiierd. 

EA: i feel like wwe should see each other before fefs thanksgivvin thing

SC: oh, 2o 2oon?   
SC: thii2 ii2 2o rii2que… what wiill everyone thiink?  
SC: 2hould we meet under the cover of darkne22?  
SC: whatever wiill ii tell my hu2band?

EA: OKAY  
EA: if you could stop bein an asswipe for fivve seconds i MEANT wwe should meet up before fef does her wwhole friendsgivvin shebang so wwe can get out all the awkward feelins wwithout a fuckin audience

SC: okay that actually ii2 a good iidea.

EA: lunch?

SC: yeah 2ure. wedne2day work for you?  
SC: around noon?

EA: yeah i think i can schedule you in

SC: iim flattered  
SC: you cant 2ee riight now but iim 2wooniing liike, mega hard  
SC: blu2hiing 2o much that iim lo2iing ciirculatiion iin other part2 of my body

EA: tell me if im wrong but all of your stupid fuckin jokes absolutely reek of defense mechanism

SC: damn look2 liike iim not the only armchaiir psychiiatrii2t iin thii2 facebook me22enger chat.  
SC: 2o wedne2day?

EA: wwednesday

Eridan Ampora continued to make slow progress on his polisci paper. Sollux messaged him again after 20 minutes. 

SC: waiit hii me agaiin that guy you made out wiith where do you want to eat?

EA: uhhh

SC: chiipotle?

EA: chipotle is ass  
EA: i dont eat there

SC: cant beliieve you ju2t saiid that two me.

EA: not my fault you havve bad taste

SC: ii miight have two go back to iironiically hatiing you for that.  
SC: what doe2 your fuckiing riich a22 take a fliight two mexiico every tiime you want a burriito bowl?

EA: no chipotle just makes me sick  
EA: sorry for havin bad digestivve genes or wwhatevver the fuck

SC: 2o why dont you 2ugge2t a place.

EA: the vvegan place west of campus?

SC: that place… charge2 twelve dollar2… for 2alad.

EA: oh yeah  
EA: its okay ill just pay

SC: iid feel weiird about that.  
SC: 1.50 on coffee ii2 one thiing but  
SC: a 2eventeen dollar black bean burger ii2 another.

EA: not to be that guy but it literally makes no difference to me  
EA: so you could be smart n amiable n take the free trendy food or wwe could argue for another ten minutes about wwhat mediocre place near campus wwere going to eat at so wwe can get ovver the inevvitable awwkwwardness of seein each other for the first time after a lucid drug induced hookup at a mutual acquaintances party

SC: well put  
SC: ii gue22.

EA: SO WWEDNESDAY.

SC: wedne2day.

And it felt, to both of them, though neither would admit it, that the first half of the week dragged on. It wasn’t necessarily because they were nervous or excited, it was the mere act of marking Wednesday with a midday lunch date that made the week curve around it.

On Monday, Aradia said to Sollux as she was cooking lunch for the two of them and Tavros, “So where did you and Ampora go for…. About 70 percent of that party on Saturday?”

Sollux played it off casually without looking up from the weekly newspaper Sudoku. “You know. Weed makes people not want to get up and do things.”

“Oh, of course.”

He stopped himself just short of asking this damning question:

What, did you think otherwise?

Regardless of what Sollux said or didn’t say, Aradia said this:

You know, it’s funny, Dave and I were almost convinced you two were hooking up. Can you imagine? We were drunk-theorizing about it at the bar.”

Sollux laughed. He’s a very good liar. “God, can you imagine? We smoked two whole joints. If we even tried we probably would’ve collapsed on top of each other and fallen asleep.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Silly thought, though, wasn’t it?”

“Eh. It’s college. Crazier things have happened.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“So as long as we’re on the topic, why don’t you tell me about that Tinder date yesterday.”

“Oh! They were actually really sweet, I think I might see them again-”

And an unpleasant topic was skillfully averted. Besides, Sollux really did care about how Aradia’s date went. His inquiry was only slightly strategic.

Eridan managed to be trapped into a similar conversation with Terezi Pyrope, of all people, even though she was much closer with Sollux. She came up and sat next to him in the class they had together, which she had never done before.

Here are some interesting facts about Terezi:  
She’s legally blind  
Her vision is technically there, but irreparably terrible  
She doesn’t mind  
She says it’s given her a better appreciation for color  
She’s surprisingly independent and walks with a cane everywhere  
She spotted Eridan that day, because he has a dyed purples streak in his hair  
Well, that’s more of a fact about Eridan  
But after all, this story isn’t really about Terezi

“Uh, hey Ter. We never sit together.”

Terezi smiled widely. He wondered if she would be able to tell in a mirror how creepy it was.

Here’s the answer to Eridan’s stray thought:  
She could tell it was creepy  
She liked it that way

“Yeah? That doesn’t mean we can’t start. And today is as good a day as any!”

“Oh. That’s… nice I guess.”

“I just think it’s funny how you think you’re too good for Chipotle?”

Eridan put his hand on the bridge of his nose. He was wearing three rings on that hand. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ did Sol tell you that?”

“More or less.”

Here’s what Terezi was referring to:  
Ever since freshman year she had been keeping documents of information about people compiled in one place  
A select few of her friends had the ability to suggest new pieces of information, even though she only allows them to read the documents under extenuating circumstances  
Sollux had recently been granted access to the sparse Eridan Ampora document  
On Sunday afternoon, he suggested the addition “thinks he’s above Chipotle”  
In February she would allow Sollux to look at her Eridan Ampora document in full

“Terezi aren’t you Mexican? You of all people should know Chipotle is terrible.”

“I resent your implication that just because my grandfather was born in Guadalajara I can’t enjoy a delicious and affordable burrito bowl every now and again.”

“Unbelievable. Everyone at this school has shitty taste but me, apparently.”

Here’s another thing that was written on Eridan Ampora’s document:  
Elitist prick

It was, in fact, the first thing written on the Eridan Ampora document

“Ampora, you’re fun. I don’t know why we don’t talk more.”

“Yeah, well, I guess most people find the dislike of cheap Mexican food alienatin’.”

She laughed at that, genuinely.

Wednesday morning came uneventfully. Eridan showed up to the vegan place first, three minutes early, and Sollux came second, two minutes late. They looked at each other for a second full on, then looked away. Eridan looked at the wall to the right of Sollux’s head, and Sollux looked to the floor in front of Eridan’s shoes.

“Hey,” Sollux said, still looking at the floor.

“Hi,” Eridan said. They were quiet for just a second too long for it not to be awkward. “Okay, let’s just. On the count of three we have to look each other in the eye.”

“Oh my God.”

“One, two-”

“Three- fuck.”

It was awkward, but was getting less so with each second of the encounter.

“Glad we didn’t wait ‘till Thanksgiving,” Sollux said, “Dave would have been all over this. He could use this one interaction to cook enough awkward soup to feed a family of five for a whole month.”

“Yeah. ‘N you made fun of me for the idea.”

“Only a little.”

“Do you wanna order?”

“I’ll just have a salad.”

“Which one?”

“The… the plain greens salad.”

“You don’t fuckin’ want that. You’re just sayin’ that because it’s the cheapest thing on the menu.”

“No, dude, I’m actually really fucking into kale.”

“I’m gonna get you the black bean burger. You like mushrooms or no?”

“No, I want the salad.”

“Okay, so I won’t get mushrooms.”

“Wait-”

Eridan was getting in line. He raised his eyebrows. Eridan was not one of those people who could only raise one eyebrow at a time.

“I like mushrooms.”

“Okay. I’ll get kale on it too.”

“I don’t actually like kale.”

“I know. I just wanted to hear you say that.”

Sollux went to get a table and let Eridan get in line. He thought about sending Terezi the suggestion “throws money at people to get the upper hand in casual situations that don’t actually call for one person having any hands over one another” but stopped himself, because he knew that would make Terezi question why he was suddenly sending her hyper-specific critiques of Eridan Ampora. It was also because, although he liked to admit this part to himself less, he knew Eridan didn’t actually mean it nearly as aggressively as it came off. In fact, he probably just had good intentions combined with poor social etiquette. Sollux finally decided to let it go for this reason:

He would have never, ever, eaten a 22 dollar burger if his rich, sort-of-douchey sort-of-nice ambiguously friendly one-time half-almost-maybe-hookup wasn’t paying for it.

After a few minutes Eridan came and sat back down. “They’ll just bring it out when it’s ready.”

At the worst possible time, Sollux was greeted with the crushing realization that Eridan was very attractive. “Sounds good.” And at the worst possible moment, he started over analyzing everything that happened Saturday night through the lense of:

Oh fuck, wait, he’s actually attractive.

“They’re usually pretty fast here.”

“Good. I’m hungry as fuck.”

“So,” Eridan said.

“So.”

“We’re good, right? I mean… okay… I kind of felt bad about what happened Saturday, to be completely honest. I was definitely less fucked up than you and I shouldn’t’ve-”

He was interrupted by Sollux laughing.

“What?”

“Please, you were high as shit, too. Nothing that weird happened, anyways. If we start trying to hash out whose “fault” it was, we’re probably end up in a more awkward place than before.” He put air quotes around fault. 

“God, you’re right.”

“So we’re good. 

“You think, maybe, I don’t know, I don’t want to be, like-”

“Holy shit just say it.”

“Do you think we could still try and be, I don’t know, friends maybe? I thought things were just startin’ to go okay, and then-”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be opposed to trying to have a normal friendly relationship. Like I said Sunday, this only has to be weird if we make it weird.” Sollux checked a text on his phone. It was from Karkat and said this:

CG: SO IM WATCHING BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH JOHN AGAIN AND HE DOESNT SEE THE ABSOLUTE INANITY OF MARTYS PARENTS NOT REMEMBERING HIM EVEN THOUGH HE WAS THE REASON THEY STILL GOT TOGETHER?  
CG: LOOKS LIKE ANY FUCKING JACKASS WHO KNOWS HOW TO TYPE AND USE ALLITERATION CAN MAKE A CLASSIC FILM IN HOLLYWOOD. ITS A WONDER THERES NOT MORE FUCKING KINDERGARTENERS THAT ARE WRITING MOVIES ABOUT EATING GLUE AND NAVIGATING THEIR FIRST SUBSTANTIAL SOCIAL INTERACTIONS.  
CG: AND JOHN JUST DOESNT FUCKING GET IT.  
CG: HOW DO MARTY AND DOC EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER?  
CG: DID THEY JUST MEET AT THE ASSHOLES R US AND DECIDE HEY YOU KNOW WHAT NOTHINGS MORE COOL THAN A TEENAGER AND ELDERLY SCIENTIST JUST HANGING OUT IN PARKING LOTS OR SOME SHIT.  
CG: ALSO ITS WEIRD THAT HIS MOM HITS ON HIM  
CG: LIKE NOT EVEN FUNNY WEIRD JUST WEIRD, RIGHT?  
CG: SOLLUX PLEASE TELL ME IM RIGHT ABOUT THIS BECAUSE JOHN COULD WATCH THAT HOME MOVIE DAVE MADE WITH HIS WEIRD BROTHER WHERE THEYRE JUST TWIRLING SWORDS AND STUFF AROUND IN THEIR GARAGE AND UNIRONICALLY TELL ME THAT IT WAS A GOOD MOVIE.

Sollux decided he could deal with that later.

Eridan saw the blocks of text on his screen and asked, “Shit, what’s that about?”

“KK.”

“Oh.”

“He just loves being angry about things.”

“What’s he on about this time?”

“Fucking-” Sollux started laughing. His face scrunched up in a way Eridan thought was cute. He wouldn’t have ever said that to him, though. “Back to the Future. You know, that old ass sci-fi movie.”

“Oh yeah. I watched that once with Fef. I never really… got it, you know? Like why does his mom try and make out with him? That’s not even funny weird, that’s just weird, right?”

“That’s exactly what KK said. You two are friends, right? Bring it up with him sometime, you two could trash the movie together. I think it would make him happy.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Sollux picked at his nails. They were very short, because Sollux chews his nails when he is anxious. “So what do you even study, anyways?”

“History. You’re…. I wanna say computer science?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that? Have you been stalking me?”

“No, I think Fef mentioned it off-hand once.”

Their food came out, and to the expensive vegan place’s credit, actually looked good.

“Oh, fuck, this is actually pretty good,” Sollux said after he took a bite.

“What, were you expecting it to be bad? Not all vegan food tastes like cardboard.”

“I know. One of my roommates is vegan and he’s always cooking stuff that’s pretty good. I just kind of wanted it to be bad so I could rehash the Chipotle thing.”

“Damn, you’re really upset about that, huh?”

Sollux, after a moment of introspection, said, “Well, not really. It’s just one of those things.”

“I forgot, you like being mad for shits n’ giggles.”

With a mouth full of burger Sollux said, “And I think there are shittier hills to die on than love for Chipotle. It’s kind of a small hill, sure, but it’s not just a dirt mound either. It’s got some grass on top, maybe a few of those lil’ white wildflowers.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“It’s not a good hill all I’m saying is there’re worse.”

Eridan half-smiled. “One time in a high school debate class I had to watch one girl argue against that whole class that eggs were a type a’ meat.”

“See? That’s just like a pile of dirt.”

Eridan full smiled for a second, before scaling it back. “It’s a concave hill. I mean, it’s just a hole in the ground at that point.”

“The world’s full of dumbasses.”

“It sure is, Sol.”

It privately alarmed both of them, throughout the duration of their lunch, how well they got along with one another once they worked past the layers of arbitrary animosity. Accordingly, Sollux absconded as soon as he was done eating. He thanked Eridan half-heartedly for paying and made a move towards the door.

“Wait,” Eridan said, just before he left, “if anyone starts thinkin’ it’s their business to ask about you n’ me n’ whatevever happened Saturday-”

Sollux shrugged. “I’ve just been denying it. I think that’ll save everyone a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, good. Me too.”

“Okay then.”

“Yeah.”

“Yep.”

“See you next week.”

“Yeah.”

And Sollux left.

They saw each other on campus on Friday. They waved cordially.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i really did have them drink a lot in this fic didnt i  
> anyways i kind of like this chapter

Eridan agreed to drop by and help Feferi cook on the Monday before Thanksgiving, which, for the third year in a row, Feferi had designated ‘Friendsgiving’. He did that, as you know, because he was in love with her, not because he particularly cared for cooking or anything. These were the dishes available on the first Friendsgiving, when Feferi lived in a dorm room:  
Apple cider  
Instant mashed potatoes  
Guacamole and chips  
Deli cut turkey on Hawaiian rolls  
Pumpkin spice muffins from the grocery store close to campus

Here were the dishes available on the second Friendsgiving, when Feferi didn’t know how to cook that well:  
Instant mashed potatoes  
Instant stuffing  
A ready-made store-bought turkey  
Pumpkin pie from the bakery kind of far from campus  
Homemade cornbread

The third year, she went all out. She had skipped her afternoon class to start cooking, and invited everyone to bring something, potluck style. “Eridan? Will you check on the potatoes? I think they’re ready.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” He checked them with a fork, only to find that they still had a ways to go. Feferi still didn’t have much intuitive sense about cooking, regardless of how much improvement she had made since the year before. “They’re not.”

“How much longer do you think they’ll need?”

“I dunno. Five minutes? Three hours?”

“Eridan-”

“I’ll just keep watch on ‘em, okay?”

“Thank you.”

“Should I call Aradia over? Do we need a third person?”

“I think we’re fine.” Eridan had mostly been standing around, doing an odd task here and there when Feferi would ask him to. He grew up with a maid who cooked for his family, and was basically useless in the kitchen unless given explicit instructions. 

“Okay. When did I tell people to show up again?”

“Seven.”

“Really? It’s five now!”

“Yeah, we have two hours.”

“No, I’m calling Aradia. No offence but,” she giggled, “You’re not the most profishcient out here in the field.”

“I usually argue when you say things like that but, you know? That one’s completely true.”

Feferi was already on the phone. “Hey! Aradia! Yeah, are you busy? Yeah? Do you think you can come over now? I think I dug myself in a little too deep with this cooking stuff, haha. Yeah? Mhmm. He can come, I don’t mind. Is he good in the kitchen? How do you not know? You’re right, you’re right, how could I forget that Sollux lives solely off of Maruchan and spoonfuls of Nutella. Bring him over anyways, it’s not like he would be inhibiting us or anything. Love ya, see you soon.” Eridan had already migrated to a seat by the other side of the counter. Feferi looked to him and asked, “Can you still watch the potatoes while I wait for her?”

Eridan got back up and went to the stove. “She bringin’ Sol?”

“Mhmm. She was going to be his ride to dinner.”

“That makes sense.” Feferi went back to concentrating on her whole deal with the stuffing. Here is what was running through Eridan’s mind as he stared down at the potatoes:  
Alright champ  
Here we go  
Two hours sooner than you were expectin’ but you know  
Gotta be flexible sometimes  
Here we go not gonna make it weird  
Not gonna give Dave one single ingredient for awkward soup  
What we got potatoes stuffin’ cranberry sauce Fef even made the pumpkin pie from scratch  
Where’s the soup?  
There’s no fuckin’ soup here Strider we didn’t have the right ingredients  
Just wholesome holiday fun is all we got here

“Eridan?”

“Hm?”

“The potatoes?”

He stabbed at one with a fork again. “Still kinda hard.”

“Okay. Don’t need you zoning out again though, this is serious business!”

“You’re right how could I be such a cod-damn fool.”

“You know I love it when you say things like that!”

Eridan smiled. He thought the two of them were stupidly perfect for one another.

“Oh!” Feferi said after a few more minutes, “Aradia is here with Sollux.” As she rushed out the door, pulling on her coat, she said, “Keep watching the potatoes!”

He stuck a fork in the potatoes while she was gone. They finally seemed ready, so he turned off the stove and got out a colander.

“Welcome, welcome to my home!” Feferi said. Her voice was sing-song.

“Charming as always,” Aradia said.

Sollux said, “He looks like he’s being a real help over there.”

Eridan turned around. “I’m waitin’ for them to cool.”

Sollux laughed. He went over to the counter and put down a covered pot of food that he and Aradia had made together. “It’s pasta salad.”

“Oh! Thank you guys for bringing something!” She turned then to Aradia and said, “Okay, Aradia, so I’m working on the stuffing right now, but do you think you can finish up the potatoes- Eridan they’re done, right?”

“Yeah.” He went to the living room and sat on the couch.

“Okay,” she said, “I can do that.”

Sollux sat down in the chair across from Eridan. A half-smile made its way onto his face. “Hey.”

Eridan couldn’t help but smile back. The whole thing was just ridiculous. Sollux was already short, and seeing him swallowed up by Feferi’s big orange chair was just hilarious. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing much.”

“I talked to Kar about Back to the Future on Saturday.”

“Yeah?”

“He was relieved as hell that somebody had the same opinion about it as him.”

“He yells a lot but I think all KK really wants is validation and a long hug.”

“Wow are you, like, a psychology major?”

“No I actually already have my degree.”

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m here to shallowly evaluate my friends’ mental states, whether you realize the extent of my qualifications or not.” Sollux craned his head around, “AA!”

“Yeah?”

Sollux got to his feet, and started walking into the kitchen. “That’s way too much milk. Put that down.”

Aradia put the milk down and stepped aside. She had already poured a little too much, which Sollux took the liberty of draining. Sollux went to Feferi’s refrigerator and pulled out butter, parmesan, and cream cheese. “Where do you keep your garlic?”

Feferi pointed to a little ceramic jar in the corner of the counter. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I mean, yeah. I don’t cook that much for myself.” He brought garlic, salt, and pepper back to his section of the counter. “But when I’m home I cook for my brother a lot. And I thought three people in the kitchen would be a crowd.”

“Also, you’re lazy,” Aradia said lovingly as she went to take a seat by Eridan.

Sollux smiled. “And I’m lazy. FF, you don’t have any chives, do you?”

“Uh, sorry. Don’t really keep those at hand.”

“It’s fine, I can work without them. They would add a nice flavor, but it’s not the end of the world.”

Eridan said, playing a game on his phone, “He was really gonna let you do all the work out there, huh?”

“Men, am I right?” Aradia said with a smile.

“Sis, I hear you.”

“Hey,” Sollux called from the kitchen, “FF asked you to help, I just tagged along.”

“Oh, shush,” Feferi said, “I’m just glad you’re out here now.”

“Yeah, Feferi to be honest, I don’t know why you called me in the first place. I can’t really cook anything more complicated than Macaroni.”

“Well,” Feferi replied, gesturing to Eridan, “you’re better than him.”

Sollux and Aradia looked at him, expecting him to get defensive. Instead, Eridan said, “yeah, fair,” without looking up from his phone. “We had a maid when I was growing up.”

“There it is,” Sollux muttered. He started mashing the potatoes with an electric beater.

“What was that?” Eridan asked.

“I’m sorry, my proletariat ears can’t hear you over the sounds of you exploiting my labor! And also this beater is really loud!”

Aradia said, “He makes so many ironic jokes about communism that I’m starting to believe they’re actually fairly unironic.”

“Isn’t it weird how in some ways he and Dave are exactly the same person?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of eerie.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Eridan, can you get it?” Feferi called.

When he opened the door, Eridan was greeted by the glint of aviator shades. “Jesus, Dave, you’re a whole hour and a half early.” Eridan noticed only then that Dave had brought two bottles of flavored vodka.

“You know me, just get so goddamn excited for all-you-can-eat buffets and friendship. Couldn’t wait a whole extra hour for this legendary two-in-one.” Dave set the bottles on the counter, and Eridan could see clearly that one was pumpkin pie flavored. The other, peppermint.

“Ah, Pinnacle and Smirnoff. My two most terrible friends,” Sollux said.

Aradia groaned. “Smirnoff… I got soooo sick off of strawberry Smirnoff shots last Spring.”

“Stay over there, then, because Dave and I are going to do a shot of the Smirnoff right the fuck now.”

“We are?” Dave raised both his eyebrows above his shades. He couldn’t raise only one of them either. “Have I ever told you I like your style, Captor?”

“Yeah, you tell me that every time we take shots together.”

“Right.”

Sollux cracked open the peppermint vodka and pulled out two mugs. He eyeballed the amount of one shot.

“Drinking peppermint Smirnoff out of a santa mug? Now this is festive.”

They clinked mugs and took the shot.

“How was it?” Feferi asked.

“Slightly less terrible than unflavored vodka.”

“I’m curious to see how the pumpkin pie is,” Feferi continued, “That just doesn’t make conceptual sense to me. Pumpkin pie vodka.”

“I’ll take a shot with you, Fef.”

Dave shrugged. “Hell, I’d even do one more.”

“I’ll do like… a quarter shot. I’m curious about the taste, too.” The potatoes were sufficiently beaten, so Sollux turned the beater off. “I’m assuming you wanna sit this one out, AA?”

“Yeah. God, I’m so old! I remember when I was a youngin’ and could smell vodka without my liver convulsing.”

“It’s okay Grandma, dinner will be ready soon. ED! Come over here. I’m gonna pour them out.”

They all clinked mugs and took the shot (and in Sollux’s case, a generous half-shot). 

Feferi said, “Oh, that tastes terrible,” through a laugh. “Here-” she pulled out a spoon, and took some mashed potatoes over Sollux’s shoulder. “Need to get the taste out of my mouth- oh! Fuck, Sollux! That’s actually good!”

“Aw-”

Dave took some off the rim with his finger. “Dude she’s right. Didn’t know you of all people could cook.”

Eridan took a spoonful, too, but didn’t comment.

“So?” Sollux asked looking at him.

“They’re great. Didn’t think I needed to say anythin’ about it. Thought we already had that base covered.”

Sollux smiled anyways. “Thanks.” It was a rare moment of Solluxian genuity, much like the time he offered to share headphones with Eridan on the bus and decided he was done hating him.

“Sollux, could you help me with the sweet potatoes?”

“Yeah, FF, be right over.”

Dave looked at Eridan. “You wanna do another shot of the-”

“Oh my God, no.”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

They sat down on the couch together, across from Aradia.

Around 6:45, more people starting trickling in. Their friends brought everything from honest attempts at green bean casserole (Nepeta) to chocolate covered strawberries (Rose) to a box of Captain Crunch (Terezi). 

At 7:16, they served dinner. Feferi didn’t have a table big enough for everyone to sit at, so people were spread out. Some sat on the floor with their plates, but no one minded. It was nice. It was homey and warm.

Feferi made Eridan give up his spot on the couch for Sollux because, “After all, Sollux helped me cook.”

“I helped too,” Eridan said.

Feferi looked at him, sure you did, and he sat on the floor against the couch. Sollux made a point of kicking him in the leg once or twice. Dave looked at him, and Eridan tried extremely hard not to look back at him directly in the shades.

It was when everyone was about finished eating, but not ready to move onto dessert, that Dave stood up and went to the kitchen. “Feferi, where do you keep your wine glasses?”

“Top right.”

“Ah, thanks.”

Sollux saw Karkat tense up from across the room, and nudged Eridan. “Dude.”

They watched Dave pour a shot of peppermint vodka into the wine glass, and grab a fork off the counter. He went to the front of the room, tapped on the glass with a fork, and said, “Attention, everyone! Before you go into a food coma I have something infinitely more important to say than whatever nonsense your subconscious is going to send you during your after-dinner naps! THIS incredible man-” he gestured to Karkat with a fork, “is my BOYFRIEND now. So you can stop spending all your time guessing about it!”

Karkat put his head in his hands, but it was clear that he was smiling. He was covering a blush, above all else.

Terezi started clapping first. Everyone in the room followed. It was sweet. It made Eridan feel kind of weird and lonely, even though he thought it was cute. Dave went over and kissed Karkat on the cheek, which really made the crowd go wild.

“Any words from the man of the hour?” Sollux yelled.

Karkat removed one hand from his face and put it on Dave’s shoulder. “His breath smells like that godawful peppermint vodka.”

Everyone started cheering again.

Sollux had a weird, borderline invasive thought of running his hand through Eridan’s hair. He was already pretty close, it was a very accessible movement from his position. It was a natural thing upon seeing two people so obviously enamored with one another, to be reminded of your own touch starvation.

Ouch.

Sollux didn’t run his hands through Eridan’s hair. He offered to get up and cut the pie.

Everyone cheered.

People started to trickle out after they had their pie. Dave left arm in arm with Karkat, which made the remaining crowd ‘awww’. Rose and Jade left after hugging Feferi profusely and thanking her for hosting. After that, only Eridan, Sollux, Feferi, and Aradia were left once again.

“Well, mystery solved,” Aradia said. She was laying on the floor, hands on her stomach, looking up at the ceiling. “About Dave and Karkat, I mean.”

“I think they’re sweet together,” Feferi said, “I’m glad they stopped being secret about it.”

Sollux was sitting in that orange chair that made him look tiny again. He was still nibbling on cornbread. “Have any of you guys ever heard of the phantom time hypothesis?”

Eridan asked, “The real question is, do I want to?”

Aradia laughed.

“I mean, I think it’s wild. There are people who think that a huge chunk of the early middle ages just never happened. They thought the Carolingians were just, totally made up. They think the year is 1719, dude.”

“Slightly more plausible than flat-earth.”

Sollux started laughing. “You still banned from Uber for that?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Downloaded Lyft.”

Feferi came over and sat on the couch next to him with a glass of cider. “Yay for moving on! Yay for addressing problems in a reasonable way!”

Aradia said, “Sollux, for someone as rationally-minded as you, I never got why you were so enamored with conspiracy theories.”

“I’m enamored with them because of my rationality, not despite it, AA. It’s the most entertaining thing to watch people follow these complex interwoven webs of logic and reasoning that, at the end of the day, make absolutely no sense whatsoever. You know I-” Sollux had to collect himself for a minute, “You know I saw this guy comment on Reddit one time comment on a geology post-”

Aradia interrupted him, “Wait, r/geology?”

“Yeah. I like to keep up with your interests, AA.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. Sorry, continue.”

“Yeah, so I saw this guy comment on a post about the Earth’s core saying it was hollow, and I thought, well that’s fucking weird, so I devoted that night to tracing his signal and seeing what that guy was about-”

“Wait,” this time Eridan interrupted, “you hacked him?”

Sollux rolled his eyes. “Hacker is just a word we use to stigmatize people who are good with computers.”

Feferi said, “I don’t know if the ethics really add up on this one Sollux, but… go on.”

“So ANYWAYS, I was taking a stroll around his computer, and found out that he had a lot of furry porn saved in Word documents. So like, what the hell, right? What’s going on with these people?”

Eridan started rubbing the bridge of his nose. “That was… a lot to process in one sittin’.”

Feferi said, “Sollux, you’re delightful, as always.”

“Aw, thanks FF.”

Aradia further explained, “Sollux gets sucked into things he finds either impossibly interesting or impossibly stupid.”

“Conspiracy theories cover both bases.”

Eridan asked, “Wait, did Dave leave the vodka?”

Aradia said, “Just the pumpkin one. He brought the peppermint one back with him.”

“Can’t blame him,” Sollux said, “The peppermint was way better.”

“Do you guys wanna take another shot?”

Feferi smiled and shook her head. “It’s Monday, Eridan.”

“Yeah, Monday of Thanksgiving week. I only have one 11 am tomorrow, then I’m done. One more ain’t gonna hurt much.”

Aradia said, “I wish you the best of luck, Eridan, but you know how I feel about Vodka.”

“Sol?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll do one.”

“You have an 8 am-” Feferi started to say, before Sollux said this:

Live fast die young bad girls do it well.

Eridan poured two more shots across two mugs. They raised them up, and Eridan said this:

Clink clink, bitch.

They both shuttered because it tasted awful. They felt like friends, then, even though the feeling of loneliness from earlier hadn’t really worn off. But it was nice to have someone who understand why in God’s name you’d want to take another shot of the pumpkin pie vodka, and who would drink it out of a mug with you. It was something, at the very least, to feel understood.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for (very brief) discussion of gender dysphoria and mild transphobia  
> Also reference two songs in this chapter, neither of which carry much significance. but if you are so inclined you can look up youngstown by bruce springsteen and bloodbuzz ohio by the national

Here are a few notable things that happened between Feferi’s Friendsgiving and Winter break:  
Dave started being so annoying cutesy with Karkat that people started to wish they had just let them be cagey  
Sollux and Eridan would wave to each other on campus  
They would stop for small talk sometimes  
Their small talk was sometimes amiably aggressive, but sometimes just amiable  
They hung out together one time in a group setting, but talked to each other very little beyond pleasantries  
Eridan ran into Sollux twice at the union, at bought him two more black coffees  
Eridan went out of his way twice to listen to the song “Come as you are” on Spotify  
Sollux managed to fully explain the main tenets of flat-earth theory to Eridan on a brisk walk across campus  
Eridan technically got unbanned from Uber, but decided to keep using Lyft because he was holding a grudge  
Terezi and Dave saw a guy skateboard down a stairway railing and did not stop talking about it for the entire month of December

So it was nice, but it was fairly uneventful. Dave and his roommates had a Christmas party that Sollux, due to an unfortunately timed 8 am final the next day, elected not to attend. 

Dave said to Eridan that night over horchatas, “You’re bummed he’s not here, right?”

Eridan rolled his eyes.

“You didn’t answer because you know you’re a terrible liar.”

Eridan half-smiled and took a sip. “What can I say? He’s fun at parties.”

They went home for break relatively unchanged from Friendsgiving. All of the little things that happened between then and December 25th aren’t the focus of this chapter. The focus of this chapter is:

The phone call Sollux gave to Eridan on December 25th at 11 pm and lasted until December 26th at 1:34 am.

Eridan was feeling so strange on that day at that time that he took the call from an unknown number based in Ohio. “Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Holy shit, Sol?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh-” Eridan got up from his bed, put on his shoes and coat, and started walking through his parents’ mansion and out to the porch. “How did you… did I give you my number?”

“I got it from KK. I mean, I hacked KK’s phone from here, but. I think that’s still getting it from KK.”

“I’m- wh. Why?”

“I dunno. I wanted to talk to someone and I was just… I was running through names in my head and you seemed like the only person worth talking to.”

“Wow, I’m really that important to you,” Eridan said mockingly.

“No, I mean. Not really.”

Eridan opened the door. It was cold outside, and there were still a few scattered cars driving by. He sat down on the porch and looked at his mother’s ashtray. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want to talk to someone who knows me super well and would try and use this to, like, psychoanalyze me or something. You know if I called KK he’d be fucking grilling me about why I called him blah blah blah… I figured you’d sort of let it be what it is. Whatever.”

That kind of hurt. Eridan remembered saying something vaguely similar after he kissed him. “Yeah. If- if I’m gettin’ the right vibes from you here I think I’ve been there too.”

“Can you… can you talk for a little bit?”

“About?”

“It doesn’t matter. You could read me a manual for your washing machine, if you want.” Sollux paused a minute. “How was your Christmas?”

Eridan laughed slightly. “Fuckin’ dumb.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. My family’s weird.”

“Can you tell me about them?”

“Uh… my mom comes out here on the porch- I’m on the porch right now- and chain smokes. I don’t remember it bein’ that bad when I was little, but it’s sure as hell bad now. I think she’s gonna get emphysema. Or not, I don’t know. Some people smoke and die of lung cancer at 55, some people smoke an’ live to be a hundred n’ ten. Fuckin’ bitch is definitely gonna outlive my dad out of spite, though. Sometimes she reads cheesy romance novels out here, too. My dad doesn’t smoke. He’s serious most of the time. Kinda scares me, if I’m bein’ honest. My brother likes cigarettes and he smokes them for his Instagram but he doesn’t really smoke. Well, he smokes a lot of weed, but he doesn’t do that on the porch.”

“Mhmm.”

“And… my brother has a business degree. I don’t know what the hell people learn in business classes. How to make bar graphs? How to make Youtube ads that people don’t skip as soon as they’re allowed to? How to use words like ‘corporate synergy’ or ‘core competency’ or maybe just how to be a tool in general?”

Sollux laughed from the other line. “Yeah, I don’t know what people learn in business classes either. New fun and exciting ways to exploit the masses and sell them things they don’t need.”

“You’ll have to ask my brother.”

“Can you tell me more about him? He sounds funny.”

“He thought Joseph McCarthy was president during the Cold War. And he also thought that the Cold war lasted 8 years, or, the entirety of McCarthy’s term.”

“So we know history is not something you learn in business school.”

“Maybe you do. My brother’s just denser n’ a brick.” Eridan paused. There was snow falling lightly on his lawn. “You have a brother too, right? Didn’t you mention ‘im one time?”

“Yeah. He’s 23. How old’s yours?”

“Cronus is 25.”

“Does he have a job?”

“He works for my dad’s company.” Eridan paused again. He was trying to suppress the weirdly compelling urge to tell every aspect of his personal family life to his one-time half-maybe-hookup-if-you-could-even-call-it-that sort-of-friend. “I think when Dad kicks the bucket Cronus is gonna end up controlling the company. He’s such a dumbass he’ll probably run it into the drain. I mean, good riddance, right?”

“Take it you’re not really envious?”

“Sol, I would rather rip out my own asshole than go into business.”

He heard another laugh from Sollux’s side. It was validating, in a way. “Yeah, me too. What’s your dad’s company do?”

“Destroy the fuckin’ environment.”

“So, same thing as the rest of them?”

“No, more. It’s an oil company.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Yeah. It’s not like we don’t have fuckin… solar power ready to go, at like, any goddamn time. You know I think Cronus doesn’t believe in global warmin’?”

“For real?”

“Yeah. For a while I thought he was just selfish, like my dad, but today Cro honest to God came up to me, pointed at the snow, and said ‘wow, global warmin’s really taken its toll on us this year, huh Danny?’”

“Danny?”

“Only my family calls me that anymore. I actually kind of hate it.”

“Huh.”

“What’s your brother like?”

“I don’t know. I like him. He sounds better than your brother.”

“I don’t even know your brother and I know he’s better than mine.”

“I mean, it’s hard… sometimes, ‘cause he can’t do a lot of shit on his own anymore, but it’s not like that’s his fault or anything.” Eridan could hear muffled tapping on the other side. “It’s made me a good cook.”

Eridan sort of got what Sollux was getting at, but not quite. He didn’t think he should question him on it. “That’s nice.”

Sollux just said it outright, anyways, “He was in a bad car crash, about… I think it’s six years back now. Yeah, six. It’s been an adjustment.”

“Sorry that… sucks.”

Sollux started laughing.

“What?”

“Nothing just… ‘that sucks’. I’m sorry, it’s just kind of funny. That’s all there is to say sometimes.”

Eridan looked back over at the ashtray. The cars had, for the most part, stopped rolling by.

“So you live in New York?” Sollux asked. “I recognized the area code. Close to NYC, right?”

“Really close but not technically in the city. My dad has a huge thing about cities. A lot of it’s racism, a lot of it’s just a visceral hatred of hipsters.”

“Hatred of hipsters? How does he manage to live with one?”

“I’m not a hipster I’m just… indie.”

That made Sollux laugh again.

“Okay, yeah, I heard how dumb that was as soon as I said it. And he doesn’t really have anything against the individual hipster, per se, but he loathes them in large groups.”

“He sounds like a hell of a guy.”

“As long as he doesn’t cut me out of his will I’m fine. You know I usually spend most of break at Fef’s house?”

“Oh yeah. You guys are both from the same town.”

“Mhmm. Our parents know each other. They’re barely better n’ mine, but I’m always wonderin’ how Fef just turned out so much… I don’t know. I don’t want to pour out all my life problems to you at fuckin’... 11:30 on Christmas.”

“I get it. I’m not asking you to. You can still read me the washing machine manual if you want.”

“Nah.” Eridan breathed out. “God, fuck, sorry for bringin’ this up again, but isn’t it fuckin’ wild that we made out?”

“I mean… when you’re kind of crossed and super lonely…”

“Too real, dude.”

“Yeah, but whatever, you know? Constantly using irony as a defense mechanism gets tiring after awhile.”

“I can imagine.”

Eridan heard Sollux sigh.

“What?”

“I’m… just thinking.”

“Do you want to talk about it? If not I get it, but. It might help if you do.” Eridan scoffed. “You know my pathetic ass won’t judge you for whatever the hell it is.”

“Failed romantic endeavor.”

“Oh, shit, that’s my middle name.”

“Karkat told me it was Victor.”

“You asked about my middle name?”

“Yeah.”

“God.”

“No, Sollux.”

“You want to tell me about your failed love life or not?”

Sollux was quiet for a minute, Eridan let him be. “It was… a girl I knew in high school.”

“Aha.”

“We matched on tinder and got to talking, started hanging out during the first week of break. And then things… they progressed. And I mean she’s known me for a while and we’re making out then she asks me, ‘so you’ve had the surgery now, right?’ and I said, ‘I don’t have tits, if that’s what you mean’ and she said, ‘you know that’s not what I mean’ and then I said, ‘I don’t’ and then she just… left.”

“Oh. You’re…?”

“Trans, yeah. I assumed you knew. I thought KK would’ve mentioned it or something. I don’t know why.”

“He didn’t.”

“Oh. I mean, yeah, of course he didn't. I don't know why I thought you knew.”

“Well that sounds… fuckin’ bad. But you can’t expect her to-”

“I know. Dude, I absolutely know. Doesn’t stop it from feeling shitty.”

“If it… makes you feel any better… I asked Fef out in 12th grade.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Went about as well as you’d expect.”

“You’re not gay?”

“No? I feel like you of all fuckin’ people should know what bisexuality is.”

“Well, yeah, but. I don’t know. You know what, sorry for assuming.”

“All I’m sayin’ is… gender, sexuality, whatever, we all wrack up a collection of pretty fucked up rejections throughout our lives.”

Sollux sighed. “It’s not… exactly the same. I- nevermind. It kind of makes me feel better anyways.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe not so much because of the solidarity, but because I’m just imagining your pretentious 12th grade ass getting dumped.”

“Hey, fuckin’ asshole… she was nice about it.”

“I can’t imagine FF ever being mean about something like that.”

“Yeah. She’s a really fuckin’ good person.” Eridan thought about tagging on an: ‘I don’t deserve her anyways’ but figured that would be too pathetic.

“You wanna know something crazy?”

“What?”

“That girl texted me this morning. Christmas goddamn morning. And she said, I shit you not, she wrote, ‘you know, you should probably just tell the next girl up front that you don’t have a dick instead of leading her on. Have a nice break xoxo heart emoji’. Don’t get me wrong I… sort of get it… but also ouch, right? Bad way to go about it.”

“Imagine bein’ on a first date and the first thing she asks you is what your dick looks like.”

“Yeah. I was going to tell her anyways before it got that far, but the thing is, I didn’t even know it was going to get that far. Call me crazy but I don’t love talking about genitalia with people I’m not planning on having sex with.”

“Oh?” Eridan said suggestively.

That could have been taken quite badly, but Sollux just laughed. “Shut up, you stupid asshole.” There was another muffled tap on Sollux’s end. “It’s whatever, now. It’s whatever. Things happen. Can you tell me about something else?”

“Sure. Washing machine manual?”

“Nah… can you… tell me a story or something?”

“I can tell you about the time Feferi’s sister and I had to go into Walmart and I vomited in the frozen foods aisle.”

“Was that the first time you were ever in a Walmart?”

“... Second.”

“You bougie fuck.”

“Okay, honestly tell me that you would ever go into Walmart entirely of your own free will.”

Sollux didn’t respond.

“That’s what I th-”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Okay. I wouldn’t. Happy?”

“Yeah, I mean, a little.” 

“You want me to tell you about that day?”

“Not to be needy but could you tell me a nicer story? Rich guy and his rich friend vomiting in Walmart because he had to live like a pleb for a few minutes isn’t the kind of thing that really lifts my fucking spirits.”

“I didn’t vomit because I had to go into Walmart. I vomited because someone left a-”

“Wait, wait. Don’t tell me whatever disgusting fucking thing you were about to say.”

“Okay. I might tell you someday when I’m mad at you, though.” Eridan laughed. “Maybe not. Now that I think of it again it was actually really, really gross. Let me think of somethin’... not horrendous to talk about.”

“Thanks.”

“There was… hm. There were a few Summers when I was little that we’d spend a week or so upstate in this little town with a big horse racin’ track.”

Eridan waited for Sollux to say ‘you bougie fuck’ again. Sollux did not.

“I think we went for three years. Maybe four. I was a little kid and I don’t remember it all too well. We stopped goin’ because my dad’s stupid gamblin’ problem hit its peak n’ my mom put her foot down about it. But that’s not… the good memory part. It’s all weird, though, because I ain’t sure if there’s ever isolated good memories n’ isolated bad ones. We just got what we got knockin’ around in our brains in one big memory soup. But anyways. I always got bored with the horse racin’. I thought they smelled bad, and all the yellin’ kind of scared me. I think it scared my mom, too. M’ dad n’ Cro would always spend the whole day at the race track yellin’ at the fuckin’ smelly horses n’ shit n’ my mom would take me to a park nearby. It was a little stupid because my mom would show up to a goddamn park in her expensive dress and pearls when everyone else was dressed like they were, I don’t know, spendin’ a day in the fuckin’ park. We’d just walk around. Sometimes she’d buy me ice cream from a truck near this fountain that I liked. N’ sometimes there’d be other parents with little kids n’ we’d play together. And I don’t know how much you know about horse racin’-”

Sollux scoffed lightly from the other side.

“-yeah, I thought so, but the races usually happen in the Summer. Or early Fall. We’d go in late August. So it was nice and warm out. And sometimes me n’ my mom would have lunch. I think she always liked me a lot better n’ my dad liked Cro better. N’ I think even back then my parents didn’t like each other that much. But whenever we were in Saratoga, I didn’t even have to see Dad n’ Cro that much. This’ll sound dumb as hell but I used to go and have lunch with my mom at some cheap place and pretend that she was a single mom and I didn’t have a brother, and we lived in that little town in a normal house. I grew out of that, you know, got my fuckin’ head out of my ass and stopped pityin’ myself 24/7 but… those were nice vacations.”

“Somehow you managed to make your so-called nice memory much more emotionally draining than the Walmart story could’ve possibly been.”

“Fuck, sorry. There’s plenty of nicer ones I have. It’s fuckin’ late and Christmas is weird and that was the first thing that came to mind.”

“It’s okay. It was also kind of sweet, in a perverse way.”

“Most of my good memories of this place are with Fef, to be honest.”

“When did you meet her?”

“Middle school. She moved with her mom and sister when Fef was twelve.” Eridan laughed slightly. “You know what I fuckin’ said to her when I met her?”

“Can’t even imagine.”

“Hi, I’m Eridan, and you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. What’s your name?”

“Yeah that’s… very you.” Then Sollux asked, “You still have a thing for her, don’t you?”

“I told you Sol, she already rejected me.”

“You’re right, of course. Sorry.”

“‘S fine.” There was a beat of silence. Eridan heard the sound of something pouring on the other side. “What is that?”

“I’m making pasta.”

“Sol, it’s midnight. Or- we’re in the same timezone, right?”

“Mhmm. It’s midnight. I’m just hungry. Ohio and New York aren’t really that far away. We just think they are because one’s a Midwestern garbage chute and the other is an east coast metropolis.”

“Not all of New York is NYC. Each mile you travel outside of the city limits you are guaranteed to find a significant increase in the concentration of republicans.”

“You’re right, you’re right. But at least you have NYC. What do we have? Fucking Columbus? And there’s a million songs about how great it is to be in New York. The only song I can think of about Ohio is that one Bruce Springsteen one about how all the manufacturing jobs left Ohio.”

“I played you a song about Ohio one time.”

“What?”

“Yeah. When you were high as shit waitin’ for the Uber. You almost fell asleep to it.”

“What’s it called?”

“Bloodbuzz Ohio.”

There was a lull on the other end of about a minute. Eridan could have sworn he heard the fire coming off Sollux’s stove. Then, he heard quiet, muffled laughter. “Looked up the lyrics. Sounds like this guy hates Ohio has much as me.”

“Maybe.”

“I never thought about love when I thought about home. Damn. Sounds like this guy wants to pack up and move to NYC. Or, you know, maybe a nice town in Michigan.”

“I always liked that line.”

“I also like how he says he was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees, like. Yeah, dude. Me too. I feel that way too.”

“Feferi told me the other day you were really into bees.”

“Hell yeah. I’m in a beekeeping club at school.”

“We have one of those?”

“Hell yeah we do. Save the bees, bitch.”

“You ever get stung doin’ that?” Eridan cringed at the thought.

“I never have, personally. Some people do. I just think it’s because they don’t know enough about the bees. They’re not inherently aggressive. They’re just kind of dumb, and if they think you’re coming for them or their queen they’ll sting you.”

“I mean, whatever their intentions are, it doesn’t make bee stings hurt less.”

“Yeah, but bees do a lot for us. I’m willing to let them get away with a few things.”

“Hm.”

“Hey, you can’t be all ‘save the environment’ when it comes to spiting your dads company and then all ‘wait no bees can choke because they sting me sometimes’ the next minute. Full-time environmentalism takes commitment, ED.”

“Guess you’re right. But no one’s perfect. I bet you waste electricity sometimes.”

“You got me there- Oh, fuck yeah. Pasta’s done.”

“Do you have enough chives to garnish it?”

Sollux laughed. “Nah. I’m all about garnishes and shit when I cook for other people, but personally, I couldn’t care less about food. I’d probably live off Soylent if it wasn’t so goddamn expensive.”

“That’s disgustin’.”

“People tell me that a lot. I guess ‘I want to have a perfectly balanced diet with little to no effort on my part’ is a really controversial opinion.”

“Soylent tastes like liquid tofu, Sol. What kind of sad person just lives off that?”

“I don’t think I’d mind.”

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe. But I’ve come to terms with it.”

“You know my brother drinks that shit sometimes?”

“No way.”

“He says it’s for ‘maximum efficiency’.”

“No fuckin’ way.”

“So whenever you talk about replacin’ normal person food with that soy drink from hell, you know exactly who you sound like.” Eridan thought for a minute and said, “I think you meetin’ Cro would go about how Kar and Fef imagined you meetin’ me would be in the worst possible scenario.”

“God, now I feel like I have to meet him.”

“You say that, but you would legitimately hate him. I don’t even think in that weird way that you like to hate things. I think you’d just really fuckin’ wanna claw his eyes out of his skull.”

“I’ll take your word for it, then.”

“Is it snowin’ where you are?”

“Let me check…” Eridan heard Sollux shifting something around, probably blinds. “Yeah. A little bit. You?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re outside, aren’t you?”

“Mhmm.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“A little. Not really, though. Most of the snow on the road is dirty already.”

“Gross.”

“Are you doing anything for the rest of break?” Eridan had one of those impulsive desires to buy a plane ticket to wherever he lived in Ohio and visit him before they went back to school. He dismissed the idea as horny and dumb.

“No. I’m just spending time with my family. Me and KK have been working on a random insult generator for fun, so we might try and finish that. I’ll send you the link when it’s done so you can get called something like ‘asslord supreme with the IQ of a rotting cornstalk’ whenever it strikes your fancy.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I’ve been working on some independent projects too, because even a monkey could probably code something like an insult generator.”

“I probably couldn’t.”

“Yeah you could. I mean, maybe not right this second, but if you spent, like, ten minutes with a few youtube coding tutorials you could. I should have said something like ‘even a monkey has the capacity to create a random insult generator.’”

“Thanks for the clarification.”

“Ah, you know English was never my strong suit. The language of my heart is binary.”

“Really? Mine’s French.”

“Do you really know French, or are you just being pretentious?”

“I’m not fully fluent like a native speaker but I speak it with my grandparents.”

“Say something in French.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You could tell me how to operate a French washing machine.”

Eridan told Sollux a long story about a Summer in high school when he and Feferi visited Montreal together. After he was done, Sollux asked, “What was that?”

“I was telling you about French washing machines, just like you asked.”

“No you weren’t.”

“You wouldn’t know either way, would you?”

“I fucking hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

Eridan heard the sound of running water. He assumed Sollux was done with the pasta. “Are you done with the pasta?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you gonna do now?”

“... I don’t know.”

“Go to sleep?”

“I’m… maybe. I’m still thinking about that girl, though.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s like, what? She thinks I can just walk into a fucking CVS, slam five dollars on the counter and say ‘one dick please?’ My parents are still in fucking debt from all of Mituna’s shit, I can’t just go up to them and say, ‘hey, you think you could pay for my exuberantly expensive cosmetic surgery?’ Fuck, I’m sorry for dumping this on you, but-”

“‘S okay. It’s not healthy to keep that shit bottled up.”

“I’m not even mad at her. She just… gave me a focus point for a bunch of broad negative feelings.”

“I see.”

“The American healthcare system is ass.”

Eridan vividly remembered the last time his father ranted about entitlement programs and free healthcare being evil. “I don’t know that much about it.”

“All you need to know is that it’s fucking ass.”

“I guess I’ve… never had to worry about it.”

“Yeah. Sorry for ranting at you.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got nothin’ better to do. Do you… want me to tell you another story or something?”

“Would you?”

“Yeah… lemme think. Lemme think about it.”

“Thank you.”

“When I was maybe… I think 9? 10? My mom took me to the Guggenheim for the first time. She loves art. My dad couldn’t care less for the aesthetics of anythin’ but my mom always made sure our house had a lot of art in it. She always had a taste for fairly representational art, though. She likes Impressionism. We have a lot of that kind of stuff in our house, which is fine, don’t get me wrong. She fuckin’ loathes abstract art. She thinks it’s a cheap parody of what art is supposed to be. And you know, I was fuckin’ 10, I didn’t think anythin’ of it, I just agreed with her because I was 10 and I didn’t really know what abstract art art was. She suggested that we all take a day in the city and visit some art museums, and my dad didn’t want to. And Cro was 15 and an asshole and thinkin’ he would rather be doin’ literally anythin’ else than visitin’ art museums with his mom. So it was just her n’ me. We went to the Met first. We skipped the MoMA because my mom hates modern art that much. I’m surprised we actually did go to the Guggenheim. And, uh, the Guggenheim actually has a pretty big display of Kandinsky's later work. Kandinsky… he was a wild man. Did you know he could hear colors?”

“No.”

“It’s crazy, right?”

“Mituna tastes colors. I always wished I knew what it was like.”

“I think it’d be amazing.”

“Me too.”

“Anyways, they had all of this really abstract Kandinsky stuff. And I remember seein’ it and just thinkin’... this is better than any of the stuff my mom calls high art. I totally fell in love with it. Thought Wassily Kandinsky was the best artist I’d ever heard of. I told that to my mom and she said that I shouldn’t let my tastes be corrupted by pretty colors. But, whatever. I liked it anyways. It was a really nice day. My mom took me to this fancy Italian place after- I don’t remember the name. I was the only kid there, and the waiter was really nice to me about it. He sat with me when my mom went out for a smoke, and I told him how much I liked Kandinsky. I hope my mom tipped well.”

“Who’s your favorite artist?”

“Honestly, Kandinsky might still be up there. I like De Kooning a lot. Delaunay, maybe. That’s hard, Sol. There’s a lot a’ good art.”

“Yeah, there is.”

“Do you have one?”

“I don’t know a lot about art.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“My tastes are kind of basic. I like Van Gogh.”

Eridan smiled. “My mom has a print of ‘Irises’ hanging in our dining room. It’s funny- that’s the only one of her art choices I think I still agree with. Everyone likes Van Gogh for a reason. He was brilliant.”

“This is gonna sound dumb as shit but I’ve always felt kind of connected to him. Like, yeah, I’d probably cut off my own ear. Like, same, my man.”

“Can’t say I’ve felt the same.”

“Well, not many people have. You’re in pretty good company.”

“Calm down, edgelord. You’re not gonna chop your fuckin’ ear off.”

“Yeah, but I get the sentiment. I’ve spiritually cut my own ear off many times.”

“That’s… okay. Okay I’ll give you that. Only because I have zero idea what it means.”

“It’s ‘cause you’ve never cut your spiritual ear off.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right.”

“Do you have any plans for the rest of break?”

“Me n’ Fef were planning on at least one day in the city. Nothin’ substantial though.”

“Do you have any strong feelings on New York style pizza?”

“Not really. I don’t understand deep dish, like, conceptually, but I’m not a huge pizza fan anyways. Not a hill I would consider dyin’ on.”

“Mm. I was hoping you’d have strong opinions on it.”

“Fef does.”

“I know. That’s why I thought you might, too.”

“I don’t get why people fold it in half.”

“Me neither. It’s like… just make a thicker crust, dude.”

There was shuffling on Sollux’s end.

“What was that?”

“Hm?” Sollux said, “Nothing. Just something with my cat. He’s an asshole. He’s only got three legs.”

“Why does that make him an asshole?”

“It doesn’t. I just like to mention it. I like that he has three legs. He’s an asshole for other reasons.”

“I have a dog. I like cats better, though. It’s one a’ those really tiny dogs that fuckin’ barks all the goddamn time like a stupid idiot.”

There was another silence on Sollux’s end. “Could you just... not to be annoying… could you keep talking?”

“About my dog?”

“It doesn’t matter. Could you say more things in French?”

Eridan spent 20 minutes talking to Sollux in French. He was talking about washing his clothes, but not really about washing machines. He talked a lot about his grandmother who put her clothes outside on a drying rack after she washed them, and how he’d sit with her while she folded.

Sollux interrupted him while he was talking about a time when his brother’s dry-clean only jacket made it into the washing machine. “Hey… I know it’s late. I’m gonna try and go to sleep again. Sorry, I know this was weird as fuck, but thanks.”

“It’s no problem. It was kind of nice.”

Sollux hung up.

Eridan put his phone down next to the ashtray. It’s battery was almost drained. It was still snowing and he thought of his brother coming up behind him and making another stupid joke about how global warming’s not real. Then he asked himself this:

Why did you talk to him for two and a half hours?

He didn’t know the answer right away. After a few more minutes of staring at the snow, a voice in his head said this:

It’s because you’re very lonely.

He thought of his mother saying  
Don’t let the pretty colors corrupt your taste, darling.

He thought about how that was a really shitty thing to say to a 10 year old.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they talk a lot about radiohead in this chapter (its the only band i could really think of that would align with both of their respective music tastes)  
> i would suggest looking up the lyrics to fake plastic trees and Idioteque, but its not super important

The rest of Winter break passed uneventfully. Feferi and Eridan took their trip into the city and had a nice time together. Sollux and Karkat finished their insult generator and sent a link to all their friends. Eridan pressed the button once and got this insult:

Prince Fuckstick , ruler of the assholes at the top of Garbage Mountain.

It didn’t make him laugh but he appreciated the sentiment. He didn’t click it again.

Sollux also made a lot of progress on a more complex program he was working on to help protect his computer from malware. He had promised to install the program on John’s computer, too, because John as a person is very vulnerable to computer viruses. Eridan’s brother made three more jokes about global warming, because they had gotten a terrible snowstorm after Christmas. The most notable interaction went like this:

Cronus: From the way things are lookin’ out here, we could use some actual global warmin’.  
Eridan: You know that climate change creates an increase in all kinds of anomalous weather, not just heat waves, right?  
Cronus: Fuckin’ libs, always changin’ their story. It’s okay to be wrong once in awhile, Danny.  
Eridan: You think you’re better ‘n people who think the Earth is flat but youre fuckin’ not.  
Cronus: Please. There’s no actual science to back up global warming.

Eridan thought about politics a lot. He thought about the American healthcare system. He made a conscious effort to reevaluate his own firmly centrist political values. Sollux tried to think of politics as little as possible, because they stressed him out. He started to shift into a manic phase. 

They both came back to campus in early January. Eridan Called Sollux on Sunday, January 14th. He hadn’t saved Sollux’s number, but he recognized it in his call history. It was the call that lasted two hours and 34 minutes. It took two rings for Sollux to pick up.

“ED?”

“Yeah. Sol?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Listen, I was wonderin-”

“Where are you right now?”

“My… apartment?”

“Let’s do something. Do you want to go on a walk? Or a run? Is there an ice-skating rink around here?”

“You can just come over. You have my address?”

“Yeah.”

“Did I ever give it to you?”

“I got it from FF.”

“You hacked her?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna take an Uber then?”

“No, I wanna walk. It’s nice out.”

“For fuck’s sake it’s dark out n’ freezin’. What’s your Venmo?”

“Why?”

“Nevermind, I found it. I’m payin’ for you to take a fuckin’ Uber instead of runnin’ over here like an idiot.”

“Ten is too much.”

“You can give me the extra back if you want, but I don’t care.”

“I called the Uber.”

“Okay. Text me when you’re here.”

Sollux hung up. Eridan noticed that he had hung up without a real conclusion last time, too. Here is why Eridan thought he called Sollux in the first place:

He had no goddamn idea why he called Sollux in the first place. 

Here are the reasons why Eridan really called Sollux in the first place:  
He was still looking from closure from the phone call that was made on December 25th and lasted into December 26th  
He was still looking for definition to whatever their strange, at times unfortunate bond had formed into  
He was beginning to reevaluate his plan to try again with Feferi after college  
He was, above all else, incredibly lonely

These are the things he did while he waited for Sollux to show up at his apartment:  
He googled: William Shakespeare gay  
He googled: Alexander the Great gay  
He put away two books he had laying on the coffee table  
He put three different books on the coffee table so his apartment would look “lived in”  
He opened a window  
He closed the window  
He adjusted the thermostat  
He paced through his apartment twice  
He changed his shirt  
He did his hair  
He undid his hair to look more casual  
He arranged his vinyls in alphabetical order

He got a phone call, not a text.

“Sol?”

“I’m in the lobby. This place is bougie as fuck. Wouldn’t expect less, but I’m still in awe.”

“I’m in 4c. I’ll let you in.”

Sollux hung up. Eridan buzzed him in. It took Sollux one minute and eighteen seconds to knock on the door. He knocked rapidly, in sets of three.

“You’re out of breath?” Eridan said.

“I ran up the stairs.”

“I can… I can see that.” Eridan moved a little out of the way. “You want to come in?”

“Hell yeah.” Sollux went in and laid down on the couch.

Eridan noticed he was shaking. “You’re shakin’.”

“Yeah? That happens sometimes. That happens sometimes. Just means I should be moving.”

“No you shouldn’t, dumbass. You look fuckin’ exhausted.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Are you drunk?”

“Close, bipolar.”

“Ah.”

“You want to go ice skating?”

“Sol, where the hell would we go ice skatin’?”

“I don’t know. I just want to. Do you want to get food? Do you have any food? I could make something. Have you ever had Indian food? Of course you have, you’ve probably been to fucking India. I’ve never even been there.”

“I’ve never been, but I’ve had Indian food.”

“Can we order Indian food?”

“Are places still open?”

“Not the Indian place really close to here but the one sort of close to here stays open ‘till 11.”

“What’s it called again?”

“Kolkata garden. Can I scream?”

“What?”

Sollux jumped back up and headed towards the window. “Can I scream out here? I feel like have a lot of energy going on and I need to let it out somehow before I die.”

“Uh… go for it. Scream out the window, I guess. Or not. It’s not like smoke. I don’t think it’ll actually make any difference whatsoev-”

Sollux started screaming out the window.

“What’s your order from the Indian place?”

“Murgh Kari. Ask them to make it extra spicy- tell whoever’s on the phone I’m actually Indian. They tone down the spice for white people. I think it comes with rice and naan but can you ask? Ooh, do you want to share some samosas? I love samosas.”

“Comin’ from the guy who could live off Soylent.”

“It comes in waves.” He said again, “It comes in waves.”

“I’ll call now.”

“What are you getting?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Aren’t you vegan?”

“Vegetarian.”

“You should get yellow curry with tofu. It’s not spicy.”

“I can handle spice.”

“That’s what all white people say. Just trust me.”

Eridan trusted him. He can’t actually handle spice, he was lying about that. Eridan sat down on the couch. Sollux laid back down and put his feet in Eridan’s lap.

“At least take your shoes off if you’re going to do that. How old are these?”

“Three years, I think.” Here’s what Sollux’s shoes looked like:  
They were black and white  
They were slip on Vans  
The bottoms were faded from the dirt  
The colors were distorted

He kicked them off, and they landed inelegantly on Eridan’s floor. “Do you know how much bitcoins worth?”

“A shitton, ain’t it?”

“A shitton. But it’s always changing. It’s like, the least stable currency to ever be conceived.”

“I bet. I don’t even fuckin’ know how it works. How can money exist without anythin’ backin’ it up? Doesn’t that defeat the point of money? How is it so expensive if you can just pull it outta nothin’?”

“That’s not how bitcoin works. You can’t just log onto bitcoin dot com and type in a little code and make your own bitcoin. But it’s all based on speculation. I think it’s a bubble that’s gonna pop and fuck up the economy again. The economy’s always getting fucked up. It also hurts the environment.”

“How the hell does virtual money hurt the environment?”

“It takes a lot of energy to mine for it. And people just keep wanting more, so there’s gonna be more bitcoin mining. Capitalism’s bullshit.”

“I feel like you just jumped through 10 different vaguely connected points then came to a very strong conclusion.”

“ED, I think the literal last thing I want to do right now is get into a political debate with you. Did you know they have farms for mining bitcoin? Sometimes I feel like we’re in a cyberpunk dystopia or something. I could probably hack into one of them.”

Sollux is good with computers. Here is a fact about Sollux:  
He is absolutely not good enough with computers to hack into a bitcoin mining farm

“Wow, you must be really good with computers.”

“AA encourages me to stay away from large scale cyber-crime as much as possible. But I think… you know there are a lot of doofuses out there who buy bitcoin without really being tech-savvy. It’d be really easy to hack into someone’s Coinbase wallet and make a little cash off of it. I’d probably get away with it if I didn’t do it too often. But do idiots who thought they could make a little money off of Bitcoin really deserve to be hacked? I don’t know.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I thought you’d say that. I put a program on my computer that makes sure I can’t access anything much heavier than Wikipedia when I’m like this. It makes me go through a bunch of checkpoints. One time when I was in high school I had a really bad manic episode and I coded a virus and sent it out to a few people I hated. But you know when you’re manic you’re kind of a dumbass even though you think you’re a genius so there were a lot of holes in the program and one of them ended up being able to trace it back to me. Ended really badly. I almost got suspended. That’s when I put the protective measures on my computer. Can I scream again?”

“Go for it. Not too loud, though. There’s people upstairs.”

Sollux went to the window and screamed. He stayed at the window, and kept talking. “This one isn’t too bad, in case you were wondering. I just get in these fucking moods where… oh my god- I get in these moods where I feel like I feel like I’m going to explode. Do you wanna go ice skating? No, nevermind. It’s late. Sorry. Fuck. We ordered food anyways.”

They heard stomping from upstairs. Eridan laughed and said, “Dude, don’t scream anymore. I think the neighbors are mad.”

“So let those rich fucks be mad. They’re paying 25 hundred dollars a month for luxury but they can’t escape the screams of the working class.”

“On a scale from one to ten how ironic was that last remark?”

“I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”

“Do you want to come away from the window? It’s cold in here.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sollux closed the window and went back to the couch. He didn’t lay down that time, he sat up. He put his feet on the couch. “Do you have anything to make hot chocolate?”

“Yeah, but we just ordered Indian food. Don’t you remember?”

“Fuck! Yeah. Okay. After Indian food.” Sollux whipped his head around. “Do you have a vinyl collection?”

“Hm? Yeah. My record player is in my room.”

Sollux went to look through them. “Pretentious.”

“They sound better n’ just streamin’ music online.”

“Pretentious.” Sollux waited a second and asked, “Will you put one on?”

“Yeah. Which one?”

“Hmm… We have really different tastes.” He leafed through the records some more, almost hyperfocusing on them. “Oh, wait, hell yeah, Radiohead. Can you put this one on?”

“Yeah, one sec.” Eridan went to his room to get his record player.

Sollux looked at the album cover. “This guy always creeped me out. What’s he made of? He looks like he’s jacking off.”

“It’s a CPR mannequin,” Eridan called from the other room.

“Those things are creepy.”

“Yeah. That’s probably what they were going for.” Eridan came back with his record player and put it on the table. Sollux handed him his copy of The Bends. 

“What’s your favorite track?”

“Fake Plastic Trees. Yours?”

“How to Disappear Completely.”

“That’s OK Computer.”

“It’s Kid A, but I was joking. Maybe Street Spirit. I don’t listen to this one as much as their newer stuff.”

Eridan half smiled and laid the vinyl on the record player gently. “That’s funny. I barely listen to them besides their first two albums.”

“What does your brother think of vaccinations?”

“What?”

“Ever since you told me about him I constructed this idea of him in my head, and I’ve been having imaginary debates with him. But I don’t know what he’d think about vaccinations.”

Eridan had to stop himself from choking. “He believes in the science behind them but doesn’t think they should be mandatory.”

“Huh. I would’ve thought he was an anti-vaxxer.”

“Not really. He’s like… a really soft anti-vaxxer.”

“Still bad.”

“Still bad.”

The music started to play.

“This is a good song.”

“You’re still shakin’.”

“That’s just how it is sometimes. Sometimes you just, you know, sometimes you shake.”

“I guess you’d know better n’ me.”

“You have a nice record collection.”

“I thought it was ‘pretentious’.”

“It is.” Sollux got up and sat by him on the couch. “It’s still nice, though.”

“I’ve been lookin’ to expand it. I’ve got a lot of the same type a’ stuff.”

Sollux smiled. “Like every indie fuck with a few Bon Iver albums on vinyl.”

“First of all, Bon Iver is good.” Eridan paused. “And second… yeah.”

Sollux laughed. “Glad you can sort of admit you’re a generic hipster.”

“Never said that-”

“Okay, okay. You never said that.”

Eridan looked at his phone. “Oh- food’s here. I’m gonna go down to get it, don’t fuck up any of my stuff.”

“I won’t.”

Once Eridan left Sollux went to the window and screamed again. He looked through Eridan’s books. Sollux thought he had better taste in literature than he did in music. There was a lot of nonfiction, but Sollux wasn’t surprised. He figured history majors read a lot of nonfiction. He wondered if Eridan ever actually read Infinite Jest or if he just had it there. This is the answer to that question, which Sollux never asked, is:

Eridan has read one fifth of Infinite Jest.

He came back with the Indian food while Sollux was flipping through IQ84, which Eridan has read one third of.

Eridan said:

I heard you fuckin’ scream again.

He started laying the food out on the coffee table.

Sollux said:

Sometimes when I get like this it feels like I’m going to die.

Eridan said:

Is this what you meant, when you said you’d cut your spiritual ear off?

Sollux said:

It’s been worse than this. Tonight I feel like there’s black ants under my skin. Some nights it feels like there’s fire ants under there. I take what I can get.

This is the song that was playing:

Fake Plastic Trees

“This is your favorite, isn’t it?”

Eridan laid out all the food, and Sollux came over. “Mhmm. The melody’s nice.” He hummed along.

“It’s a downer.”

“It’s Radiohead, not Carly Rae Jepsen.”

Sollux opened up his food, and looked like he was almost going to cry. He had never wanted decent Indian food so badly in his entire life. “I know. For you, though, I didn’t think this would be your favorite in particular.”

“Why’s that?”

“Listen to it. It’s about you and FF.”

Eridan rolled his eyes. “Yeah fuckin’ Thom Yorke paid me a visit back in the 90s and wrote a whole song for me.”

“Not what I meant, dumbass. Listen to it for a minute.” Sollux started singing along with the record. He has a terrible singing voice. “She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love.”

“You don’t know anythin’ about-”

Sollux took a bite into a Samosa. “Jesus Christ this is good. I forgot how good this place is.”

“Sol-”

“And if I could be who you wanted, If I could be who you wanted-”

“Sol, okay. I get it.”

“Didn’t mean to burst your bubble.”

The song Fake Plastic Trees is not about the failings of an idealized relationship between two people, but rather, about the emptiness of consumerism and ultimate evils of capitalism. But, of course, things like songs and poetry are easily misinterpreted by people who feel like they need to project their emotions and experiences onto something.

He half smiled. “You know, when I first heard this, it did kind of remind me of her.” He continued, “I was a junior in high school, though, and I didn’t get what the lyrics meant. I just thought it was a nice song.”

“It tricks you. ‘Cause you know something like Idioteque is dark and fucked up but at least it doesn’t make you think of all your interpersonal shortcomings. Did you know my great uncle built a bunker under his house in the 60s because he was so afraid of nuclear apocalypse? One of the uncles on the white side. And we only found it after he died. It was really fucked up. I think it scarred me. Mituna asked me to go in with him. There were a shitton of dead rats, ED. Dead rat central. They were crawling all over the canned corn beef or whatever the hell my uncle thought he’d want to eat during the apocalypse. Mituna asked me to climb out and close the door on him for a second and see if I could hear him if he screamed, ‘cause he wanted to see if it was soundproof. I couldn’t hear anything. I was kind of small even back then, more so back then, so it took me a minute to open up the hatch again, once I closed it on him. For a minute I thought he’d die in there just like the dead rats. Fucking shit, this is good.”

“It’s better than the place that’s closer.”

“Would you say you’re still in love with FF?”

“Woah, woah, woah. That’s fuckin’ personal.”

“Okay. You don’t have to answer. I was just wondering.”

“I don’t know if I am. I think I am.”

“Can I tell you what I think?”

“No offense, but I’ve known you for, what, two months? I’ve known Fef for eight years. I think I know the ins n’ outs of our relationship a lil’ bit better n’ you.”

“Okay.”

Eridan kept eating for a minute, quietly. Then he sighed deeply and asked, “What were you going to tell me?”

Sollux said:

I think you’re in love with the idea of her.

Eridan didn’t say anything, but he thought about it. He thought about it long after Sollux left his apartment the next morning.

Sollux said, “Fuck!”

“What?”

“I’m thinking about bitcoin again!”

“Here’s a counter suggestion to whatever you’re goin’ to say next: tell me about literally anythin’ other than bitcoin.”

“Do you think we would be good together?”

“Uh-”

“Nevermind, nevermind, that’s dumb. Not something I should bring up after using an old Radiohead song to tell you about everything wrong in your love life. I say dumb shit like that sometimes, because being in my brain is like rolling down the highway 120 miles per hour with your windows open. Sometimes your own thoughts are hard to hear and papers just fly out. I thought I could shoot energy out of my eyes one time back in freshman year and I went on a whole thing about it. AA had to talk me down from that, and you know, we were pretty casual friends up to that point, but that changes once someone sees you when you’ve got the spiritual knife right up against your spiritual ear. KK and I are close but even he shies away from this shit sometimes. Can’t blame him, you know?”

Eridan just looked at him for a minute. “Do you still want hot chocolate?”

Sollux, only halfway done with his food, said, “Oh my God, yes.”

“Want me to make it now, or are you still-”

“Fuck this, hot chocolate sounds better. Oh! Do you want me to pay you back for the-”

“Don’t. I hate when people say shit like that. My dad’s a fuckin’ CEO of an oil company. I don’t need you to pay me back for a few samosas.”

“Your point is completely fair but… it’s still weird having someone throw money at you. You gave me ten bucks to Uber over here. It’s weird accepting charity.”

“It’s not charity, it just whatever.”

“It sort of reminds me of when kids at school would ask why my lunch cost less than theirs. Don’t know why. Just evokes the same sort of discomfort.”

“Huh.”

“That’s the thing. You, and even FF, just don’t get it, despite good intentions. She’s actually worse. I get the sense you throw money around because, like you said, you hate your dad and his money is just whatever to you. FF is always buying people expensive things because she thinks it’s really nice. And it is, but also, it makes me feel so fucking uncomfortable.”

Eridan put a mug of milk in the microwave, then stared blankly at it while it went in a circle. “Hm.”

“I know you don’t get it.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t have to. Oh, shit, it’s already 11:30. AA and my other roommate have been texting me.”

“Did they expect you home already?”

“Yeah. I just told them I was fine. Sometimes I forget to check my phone when I’m like this.”

“Listen, you want to sleep here tonight? My couch folds out into a spare bed. It’d be no trouble. You look tired as all hell.” Eridan surprised himself with that. But he had always liked the idea of waking up with another person in his apartment. He liked the days when Feferi would be too tired to go home, and she’d sleep on his fold-out couch, and he’d see her in the morning.

The microwave beeped.

“Yeah I’d… I’d like that. It’s not like AA doesn’t… don’t get me wrong, she totally gets me, but I don’t want to go home.”

“It’s like that sometimes.” Eridan started mixing hot chocolate powder into the milk.

“You know John Egbert was honest to God telling me the other day how he wanted to buy some bitcoin? I had to spend an hour talking him out of it. And half of that was just me explaining what bitcoin is. He always has such good intentions, is the thing. I don’t know why I’ve been thinking of bitcoin all night. I think it’s because I read an article about it yesterday, it got in my mind. I’ve been looking for something new to get mad about, but I don’t think bitcoin cuts it. Most people don’t even really understand how it works, so it’d defeat the point. Maybe it’s like that Chainsmokers song that came out last year- I didn’t like it that much but it’s one of those things that replays in your mind.”

“Closer?”

“That one. Wasn’t it two years ago now?”

“I don’t know. I hate it too.”

“Of course you do.”

Eridan put whipped cream on the top of the hot chocolate and started to cross back into the living room. He handed it to Sollux, and Sollux said, “Oh my God, thank you.” This is what Eridan noticed when he handed Sollux the mug:

His hands were shaking harder than he had ever seen.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i know this took longer than usual but what can i say school is back in session and i the amount of space in my brain i can devote to thinking about gay fanfiction has been significantly reduced. hope u enjoy despite the wait!

Eridan woke up to a text the next morning. It was from the unsaved number that belonged to Sollux Captor. This is what the text said:  
TA: ii took an uber back. thank2 for not beiing an a22hole. here ii2 a lii2t of thiing2 ii would liike two apologiize about: screaming out of your wiindow three tiime2, tryiing two analyze your iinterper2onal relation2hiip2, gro22ly mii2iinterpretiing a radiiohead 2ong, makiing several iinnapropriiate 2ugge2tiions about variious topiic2, talkiing about biitcoiin a lot, and claiimiing that ii could hack iinto a biitcoiin farm whiich ii2 not 2omethiing ii can do.  
Eridan exhaled loudly. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:  
CA: wwoah you didnt havve to leavve so early  
TA: beliieeve me ii diid.  
CA: so wwhat is it like youre just feelin great one minute and then youre super depressed  
CA: wwait wwas that insensitivve  
TA: a liittle.  
TA: ii dont miind though.  
TA: iit2 more liike youre eiither kiind of depre22ed or kiind of maniic for a few months at a tiime.  
TA: but for me at lea2t ii get bur2t2 of tiime when ii feel it more iinten2ely.  
CA: oh  
CA: you dont have to apologize n shit i didnt havve a bad night or anythin  
CA: wouldntve been doin anythin better  
TA: are your neiighbor2 mad at you?  
CA: i dont givve a shit i dont knoww them  
CA: they cant avvoid the screams of the wworkin class forevver  
TA: oh my god i cant beliieve ii saiid that.  
CA: it was sort of funny  
TA: iit wouldve been iif ii meant iit two be funny.  
CA: on the contrary i only think its funny because you were bein sincere  
TA: lii2ten ii dont want to get iintwo the habiit of u2iing you a2 my emotiional crutch. iive sort of done that twiice now and ii feel weiird about it.  
CA: dont  
TA: iif there2 2omethiing ii can do two make iit up two you, let me know.  
CA: sulkin doesnt suit you  
TA: what?  
CA: wwhatevver this manic pixie dream girl shit youre tryin to put on is, it doesnt suit you  
CA: im havvin a birthday party in two wweeks  
CA: n theres gonna be lots of legal alcohol there. you should come  
TA: are you 2ure you want me there?  
CA: fuckin hell you dense goddamn idiot  
CA: yeah i do  
TA: your apartment?  
CA: yeah ill text evveryone the details n shit later  
TA: should ii briing a pre2ent?  
CA: if you want  
CA: stop feelin weird about last night  
TA: wow you cured me now ii dont feel weiird.  
TA: iin fact you ju2t ab2olved me from all my unfortunate 2ociial mi22tep2.  
TA: iit2 liike ii never called my 8th grade englii2h teacher dad or criied duriing juniior prom.  
CA: wwhat can i say im a miracle wworker  
CA: see you around sol  
The same night Sollux forced himself to accept an invitation to dinner with Dave, Rose, and Karkat, because Aradia had said this to him:  
You know how it gets when you start avoiding friends.  
It made him think of the message he received early in the morning that said this:  
sulkin doesnt suit you  
They met at Chipotle.  
“Sollux,” Rose said, “I think you may have a more rapturous love of this institution than any person I have ever met.”  
“Hell yeah. Good to know I’m the best at something, even if that thing is loving Chipotle.”  
“I don’t like to think of it as a competition,” Dave said. “Chiptole is like a mother who welcomes us all with her gentle arms. And maybe she has secret favorites, but she tells you, no, honey I love you the same as your siblings, and you’re seven and haven’t turned into an amateur psychologist yet, so you nod along and say thanks Mom do we have any Capri Sun?”  
“That was incomprehensible,” Karkat said, smiling. Sollux noted that he’d gotten less angry since he and Dave got together. He was still Karkat, for sure, but his anger was shifting to more charming than deeply worrying.  
“Was it, really?”  
“I’m Chipotle’s favorite kid, because I come here so much that some of the workers give me free guac.”  
“No fucking way,” Dave said.  
“Fight the power, Sollux,” Rose said.  
“Their guac isn’t even good. It tastes like they put avocado gelatin into a blender,” Karkat said.  
“It’s not the quality of the free guac,” Sollux replied, “it’s the idea of the free guac.”  
“You’re a goddamn philosopher.”  
Karkat left first, due to an early class the next day. Rose, too, left early, expressing the desire to get home before it got dark out. After she left, Sollux and Dave had a short conversation that went like this:  
“Dave, you’re kind of pretentious, right?”  
“Ironically.”  
“Okay, but you have a record player.”  
“Oh, yeah. Fair. Why?”  
“Do you know any place they sell cheap records around here?”  
Dave smirked. “I know exactly two other people with a record collection and I am about 90 percent certain you do not want to buy one for Rose.”  
“It’s his birthday.”  
“He’s richer than you can fucking comprehend, you know that right? Before you try to spend any money on him.”  
“I know. That’s why I wanted to get a cheap one. It’s the sentiment, more than anything.”  
“There’s one closeby, if you have another half hour to dick around with me.” Dave stood up and threw his trash away. Sollux followed closely, and started buttoning up his coat, which was missing one button in the middle. “I don’t remember you ever giving one singular shit about sentiments. You two a thing now, or what?”  
“Dave-”  
Dave rolled up the sleeve of his coat and started tapping on his non-existent watch. “We’ve only got so much time in the universe, kid. This company’s going under. Me and Jade had to vape catnip last weekend because we didn’t have enough weed. You know what that does to a man’s morale? Having to supplement your weed with catnip? I’m dying, Sollux.”  
“Never knew you were such an aggressive real-people-shipper. I’ll have to give Nepeta a call.”  
“Nah. I’m fucking with you, mostly. I mean, me and Jade did mix weed and catnip, but not because we didn’t have enough weed.”  
“You’re a trainwreck of a person.”  
“Hell yeah, dude. But to be real it does kind of suck that you guys both seem to be so freaked out about it. I have never seen two people so afraid of their own sexual tension in my entire life.”  
Sollux shook his head. “Both of us have a lot of shit going on. I’m honestly just trying to be his friend at this point.”  
“Okay. Makes me think of some of those cheesy romcoms Karkat likes.”  
“You wouldn’t think a guy like him’d be into that kind of garbage.”  
Dave cracked a small smile. “Maybe when you first meet him. But once you get to know him it fits in pretty well with everything else. He’s sentimental. Now, okay, can I ask you something?”  
“I guess.”  
“What do you see in Ampora? Just, friend-wise, if you’re still into going that direction. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an alright guy. He’s kind of funny, even if a lot of it’s unintentional. But before a few months ago, I just figured like everyone else that you guys would be mildly put off by each other if you ever met. A good old fashioned lukewarm dislike. Like that one kid in history class who always peaked at your paper- you’re not a big fan and you don’t really get what he’s about, but, you know, it’s not like you’re gonna call him out on it.”  
“I don’t know.” Sollux looked up at the sky. “He’s… I think he’s simultaneously the most judgemental and most accepting person I know.”  
“Huh. Didn’t expect that. Oh- here’s the store.”  
“Wow. This is pretty close.”  
They went inside together, even though Sollux didn’t need Dave to be there anymore. “Do you know what you’re looking for? Ampora has, like, indie softboy taste.”  
“I know.” Sollux started flipping through the records. “His taste’s mostly shit.”  
“Straight savage.”  
They had jazz music playing in the shop. There were three other people browsing, and there was dust on some of the older records that hadn’t been moved in awhile. Dave pointed to a record every now and again to give Sollux his opinion on it. Sollux ignored Dave’s opinions. This is the record Sollux pulled out after five minutes of searching:  
Kid A  
“Wow, Radiohead? How romantic.”  
In response, Sollux said:  
Everything in its right place.  
His hands were still shaking, if only a little bit, when he took his debit card out of his wallet to pay.  
Sollux and Eridan ran into each other in the weeks leading up to Eridan’s birthday party as often as they usually did. Sometimes they just waved, sometimes they stopped to talk, and sometimes they’d end up doing something more substantial, like grabbing coffee together.  
Here is a thought that both of them had, at least once, during the weeks that lead up to Eridan’s birthday:  
How pathetic is it, that I’m excited to run into him?  
Here is what comes up when you type the words dramatic irony into Google:  
a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.  
“You know, if you’re still hellbent on makin’ whatever up to me, I figured out somethin’ I actually want.” They had run into each other getting coffee once again, and decided to drink it together, since neither of them had a class. Or, rather, Sollux didn’t have class. Eridan was skipping class.  
“Your phrasing sounds absolutely ominous. Are you going to ask me for a weird sex favor? I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed, but I should also probably get some monetary c-”  
“No, no, wrong. That’s not what I was gonna ask.”  
“Yeah, I know, dumbass. Get on with it.”  
“Take your fuckin’ 3D glasses off. I’ve never seen your eyes.”  
Sollux rolled his eyes. Eridan couldn’t see it very well because he still had the glasses on. “Wow, what a request. What is this, a shitty romcom?” Sollux was at the level of self-awareness just below where he would have said, ‘What is this, a shitty fanfiction?’ He continued saying, “I’m gonna take off my glasses then you look deep into my fucked up eyes and fall in love with me?”  
“‘M just curious. I’ve spent a lot of time with you n’ I don’t even know what color they are.”  
“I mean, I guess if that’s important to you. To be honest, if I weren’t sitting in front of you I couldn’t tell someone what color your eyes were.”  
“Guess you n’ me notice different things about people. You gonna take your glasses off or not?”  
Sollux sighed, reluctantly. He took them off. “See? This one’s fucked up.”  
“They’re kind of… red and blue. Huh.”  
“This one’s technically brown.”  
“Doesn’t matter if it don’t look brown.”  
Sollux put the glasses back on. “Well, that’s that.” He looked at the back of Eridan’s chair.  
Here is what people usually say about Sollux’s eyes:  
Wow, they’re beautiful!  
I expected them to be brown  
So strange that they turned out that way!  
Aren’t your brother’s like that, too?  
Here is what Eridan Ampora said:  
That was interesting. Didn’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.  
For some reason, Sollux liked that a whole lot better than what he usually got.  
Eridan’s party was on the last Saturday of January. Feferi showed up first to help him set up. It was not because she was in love with him, it was because she valued his friendship. Eridan realized that and felt a little less bad than he should’ve for it.  
“How many people did you invite?”  
“About 25 I think? Nothing major. A few probably won’t show up.” In case you were wondering, 21 people showed up, in total, to Eridan’s party.   
Feferi stood on his table to fix a string of lights. He had told Feferi he was going for a classy, lowkey vibe, which she laughed at. Eridan did not understand the humor. Eridan went over to the counter, where he had all of the alcohol he legally purchased. “Can’t believe I fuckin’ legally purchased that. I’ve done it in Europe, but it feels different here. Feels like I’m finally a man.”  
“Cod, shut up,” Feferi said through a laugh.  
“You want somethin’ before the party starts? Other people might’ve pregamed. Or not, I said there’d be a shitton of alcohol here. Whatever. You want some wine?”  
“I’ll have a little once I’m done with the lights.”  
Eridan poured out two glasses of wine, then put the bottle in his fridge. The wine was classy, sure, but it was way too expensive to be lowkey. Eridan overlooked the fact that he had an array of equally expensive alcohols laid out on his counter. “C’mere.”  
“One- okay- one second.” Feferi took 32 seconds to finish fixing the lights. She stepped off the table and walked towards the counter. “Okay, there. Done.”  
“They look good.”  
Feferi took the glass, and smelled the wine. “I like the lighting. Who did it?”  
“Wasn’t me, whoever it was.”  
“What a shame, I was going to hire her to do the lights for my next party.”  
They clinked glasses, and took a drink.  
“Clam, Eridan, you really went all out with the whole being 21 thing, didn’t you?”  
“Of course. It’s a big deal.”  
“Were you alone buying all this?”  
“No, Kar went with me.”  
“That’s nice. I was getting sad for a minute, thinking about you going alone.”  
“That is kind of a sad image, isn’t it?”  
They laughed. And when they were halfway through drinking their wine, there was a knock at the door.  
“Oh! I’ll get it! I’m excited, even though this is your party. Birthdays are just exciting!”  
Eridan watched he go to the door, and kept sipping his wine. This is what was going on in his head when he watched her move from the counter to the door:  
The green plastic watering can  
For a fake Chinese rubber plant  
In a fake plastic earth  
“Terezi! No Vriska tonight?”  
“She had a paper due tonight.”  
“On a Saturday?”  
“Yeah, isn’t that wild? She said she’d be over when it was finished.”  
Eridan glanced at the clock on his stove as Terezi made her way inside. “You showed up exactly on time. Congrats… I guess.”  
“I know, I know, on time for a party really just means early to a party. But time isn’t real anyways.” She walked over to the counter and asked, “What’ve you got? I can’t read the labels. Looks good, though. You rich mother of fuck.”  
“You want me to walk you through all of it?”  
“Yeah, if you don’t have anywhere to be.”  
“Fef, do you want to put on some music? Okay, so, startin’ with the basics, we got two kinds of vodka, just normal n’ then cherry-”  
Terezi squinted. “Is this fucking Grey Goose?”  
“Of course. Who do you think I am?”  
“I feel like my wallet is going to get hemorrhoids before you even get halfway through with this.”  
“Well, you asked. There’s one bottle of rum here-”  
“Hell, is that imported?”  
“Ter, I think this’ll go a lot better if I tell you upfront that every one of these is fuckin’ expensive.”  
“Point taken.”  
Eridan was halfway through when Dave and Karkat arrived. Karkat had a gift and went to set it on his table, Dave went straight in for the hug.  
“Dave, I didn’t know we were at this level of friendship.”  
“We’re not. I just know you’re gonna treat me to some of the best shit I have ever poisoned my liver with tonight.”  
Eridan rolled his eyes. “I was just givin’ Ter the grand tour.”  
Karkat had joined them at the counter. “Still don’t know why you wasted your money on Grey Goose. I’ve never had vodka that didn’t taste like hand sanitizer that was on fire and also just came out of someone’s asshole.”  
“Full offense, Kar, but you’ve only had cheap vodka.”  
Dave and Terezi laughed at him. Dave picked up a bottle of Tequila. “Isn’t it fucking rich that the only person who could read this label is blind as shit?”  
Terezi said, “If you say the Spanish as best as you can, I might be able to translate it. Or else I’ll call you a white piece of shit.”  
“Uh… este tequila-”  
“White piece of shit.”  
Everyone laughed at Dave, that time. He was a good sport about it. “Hey, you know, next age milestone you get is when you’re 50. That’s when you can join AARP.”  
Feferi called from across the room, “No, when you’re 25 you can rent a car!”  
“Ah, shit, looks like you’re not a fucking geiser yet.”  
Eridan said, “Why would I rent a car? I’ve never seen anything in an Enterprise lot I’d want to be seen in.” He finished his glass of expensive wine.  
Karkat said, “Let’s all take a shot every time Eridan’s an elitist tonight. First one to die of alcohol poisoning wins!”  
Dave brushed his hand against Karkat’s, then wrapped their fingers together. “Nah, but shots sound good. Eridan, open that tequila that probably cost 100 dollars or some shit and let’s go.”  
When John eventually stumbled in with Rose, Jade, and Kanaya, he was situationally aware enough not to bring a cheap bottle of wine. Instead, the four of them chipped in and bought him a light up tie, which they knew he would never wear. They, too, were thoroughly impressed with the alcohol selection. Even Rose lost her ever-present chill when she saw the kind of gin he had bought.  
Sollux and Aradia showed up next.  
“Ah, no Tavros?” Feferi asked at the door.  
“He’s coming later,” Aradia said, “he’s skyping his mom right now.”  
“That’s cute.”  
“Does his mom know he’s gonna get fucked up tonight?”  
As she was walking in, Aradia said:  
I would assume not, Dave.  
Sollux handed Eridan his gift instead of putting it on the table. He had wrapped it in newspaper. One of the most visible headlines said this:  
Man arrested for masturbating in local Walmart  
“I can guess what this is.”  
“Yeah. It’s pretty obvious that I got you a square. You’re into 2D statues, right?”  
“Is it that one Nirva-”  
“Just open it.”  
“Oh. Huh. Kid A. I never listened to this one much.”  
“I know. It’s different than the stuff you already have.”  
Eridan went to put it with the rest of his records. “That’s cool. I appreciate it. I’ve been tryin’ to branch out. But I told you that already, didn’t I?” He smirked. “Maybe I should put it on now n’ set the mood.”  
“Yeah, I think that would work out pretty well. It would make everyone either leave or want to get drunker.”  
Dave said, already behind the counter and making himself a gin and tonic, “Oh my God, just kiss already.”  
Sollux and Eridan both laughed nervously, then anxiously separated.  
Kanaya, who was experimenting with the proportions for her own G and T, told him, “Even though you’re doing it… ironically… I don’t see whatever you’re doing as helping the energy of this party very much.”  
It was only well after more people showed up and one quarter of the alcohol was gone that Sollux and Eridan found themselves talking to one another, once again. They were sitting on the floor by the window next to each other, letting the sides of their feet touch.  
“Did you know I have a double jointed thumb?”  
“Hm?”  
Sollux didn’t say anything. He bent his right thumb in a way that freaked Eridan out.  
“Goddamn you’re a strange guy.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. There’s so much goin’ on with…” Eridan gestured to Sollux’s entire body, “this.”  
“Is that a good thing?”  
“I think so. You’re less borin’ than most people I know.”  
Sollux let out a short, loud burst of laughter. “You know those fucking scene kid memes that say stuff like ‘normal people bore me’? That’s what that sounded like. ED, did you have a scene phase? You did, didn’t you? I can tell, don’t lie. If you lie I’m gonna tell FF.”  
Eridan was quiet for five seconds. “...yeah.”  
“Oh my God. I’m gonna ask FF for pictures. I called it.”  
“What if you don’t ask her for pictures and I just show them to you on the condition that you don’t make anyone else think of my scene phase.”  
They were leaning against a wall, in full sight of everyone, but the party had been underway long enough to create enclaves in plain sight.  
“Hm… a tempting offer. I think I still need more convincing, though.”  
“What could I give you to make this deal work?”  
“Eridan!” Feferi yelled, “Eridan, you should open the rest of the presents!”  
“Hm?”  
“Get back over here!”  
There were five unopened presents sitting on the table. One of them was from Feferi, which she was exuberantly excited for him to open. Eridan made his way back to the couch, and Sollux made his way vaguely closer to the rest of the party, slotted in next to Aradia.  
Eridan started to laugh. “Uh… first I think I should say thanks to John n’ Rose n’ whoever else for that disgustin’ tie-”  
“You’re absolutely welcome,” Rose said.  
“Yeah- and Sol for that depressin’ Radiohead album.”  
“Hell yeah.”  
Eridan picked up the gift from Nepeta and Equius, “And this is-”  
“Wait, wait,” Dave said. He got up and fished something out of a bag he had brought with him.  
“Dave Strider did you just bring a bottle of Smirnoff into my house? I’m insulted.”  
Dave walked back to the center of the party. “Yeah, when Grey Goose starts making cake flavored vodka, let me know.”  
“Oh my G-”  
Dave started. “Happy birthday to you-”  
Everyone joined in, eventually. Here are the things they said ‘Happy birthday dear’ to, instead of ‘Eridan’:  
Douchebag  
Dickwad  
Bougie fuck  
Asshole  
Happy birthday to you.  
Dave shoved the Smirnoff in Eridan’s face. “Cake shot for the birthday boy.”  
Eridan took the bottle. He said this before he took a shot:  
Only the worst kinda person can’t drink a lil cheap vodka when it’s festive.  
Everyone cheered, and he passed the bottle around. “Okay, now this one is from… Nepeta and Equius?”  
“Yes!”  
“Yes.”  
It was nicely wrapped, but it was wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.  
“Aw, vegetarian cookbook. This is nice.”  
He picked up Feferi’s next.  
“No, open that last,” she said.  
He picked up Vriska’s gift. It looked expensive but he didn’t quite know what it was supposed to be. Tavros gave him a cheap but well-intentioned scarf. Dave and Karkat gave him a fidget spinner.  
“Thanks. For that.”  
“Spin spin, bitch.”  
Feferi practically thrust her gift into Eridan’s hands. “Open it, open it!”  
It was a scrapbook. Eridan put his hand over his mouth. “Fef, this is sweet.”  
John lead the crowd in a collective ‘aww’.   
“Holy shit, haven’t seen these pictures in years.”  
Sollux asked, “Any from his scene phase?”  
“Sol-”  
“Yeah, I put a few in there.”  
“Fef!”  
“What? It was an important part of your personal development.”  
They spent the next twenty minutes working through the scrapbook, awwing and laughing at all the appropriate moments. People started leaving once they were done going through it. Again, some time afterwads, Sollux and Eridan found themselves leaning against the wall under the window. They let their ankles cross over one another.  
“I liked the picture,” Sollux stopped to laugh, “where you had your hair dyed red and black.” Sollux reached over and poked Eridan’s purple streak. “You’re sort of the same, now. Just a member of a more socially acceptable subculture.”  
“Yeah, okay. You saw the fuckin’ pictures. Happy?”  
“Extremely. Much better because everyone was laughing at you, not just me.”  
“Yeah. It was really great for me, too.”  
“You don’t sound drunk.”  
“I’m not.” Eridan looked up. “Call me crazy, but I kind of wanted to remember this party. It’s not just some throwaway night at a frat, you know? You don’t sound drunk either.”  
“Nah. I’ve been going slow, even though your alcohol selection is fucking ridiculous. I’m meeting a professor tomorrow morning and absolutely do not want to be hungover for that. And I get hungover embarrassingly easily.”  
“There’s probably gonna be leftovers. You n’ me can get shitfaced another night.”  
“Look at KK, he’s gone.”  
“He doesn’t think he’s a lightweight but he so fuckin’ is.”  
They laughed at him.  
“So, 21 now, how’s that feel?”  
“People make a big deal as birthdays but they’re excuses to have parties, most of the time.”  
“That’s funny. Birthdays always give me existential dread. Oh, fuck, what’s Dave getting on the table for?”  
“I dunno- oh, okay, Fef’s gettin’ him off there. Thank God. N’ you always struck me as the kind of guy who’s never not filled with some level of existential dread.”  
“We’re always just… getting older.”  
“No shit, Socrates.”  
“I know, I know how that sounds, but it’s one of those things.”  
Eridan asked:  
What’s your biggest fear?  
Sollux said:  
That’s a weird question. I don’t know. Death? Failure? I’ll tell you what, though. With all the shit that goes on in this world, the inevitable march towards death, the desecration of our morals by global capitalism, I still have nightmares that I’m six and I locked Mituna in that bunker again, except I could never get him out. What’s yours?  
Eridan said:  
Bein’ alone, I think. Bein’ absolutely completely fuckin’ alone.  
“That’s rough. That feels real as hell.”  
“Look at Dave over there. He wouldn’t fuckin’ notice if someone punched him in the throat. Dumbass.”  
“He’s excited about the expensive alcohol.”  
“Everyone looks drunk and dumb.”  
“He was so preoccupied with us hookin’ up before. We could be playin’ tonsil hockey right now and he wouldn’t even notice.”  
“Was that a suggestion or a hypothetical?”  
“What did you think it was?”  
“Is this something we should talk about now?”  
“Sorry.”  
“I know we’ve both been weird and going back and forth and all that shit, but I don’t want to just fuck around for a week before you decide you’re still gonna wait another five years for FF to come around.”

Eridan sighed. Here’s the first message his brain sent him:  
You’re in love with the idea of her.  
This is the second message his brain sent him, when he looked into those stupid 3D glasses that Sollux hadn’t taken off all night:  
Don’t let your taste be corrupted by the pretty colors, darling.  
“Maybe the age is gettin’ to me.”  
“What do you mean by that?”  
“I don’t really know.”  
Here is what Eridan meant by that:  
He had realized, in one moment of clarity, that he was perfectly content to have Feferi only as a friend for the rest of his life.  
My fake plastic love.  
“Shit,” Sollux said, looking at Dave again, “he really would not notice, would he?”  
Eridan leaned in and puckered up as a joke. Sollux leaned in and kissed him as a half-joke. It was the kind of chaste kiss you might get from that one weird aunt who insists on kissing you on the lips instead of the cheek.  
“Happy birthday, you stupid horny fuck.”  
They started to laugh. “That was fuckin’ dumb.”  
“Look at him over there. He didn’t even notice. He’s so gone.”  
They laughed again. They sat and talked about nothing until Aradia and Tavros told Sollux they were headed back. Feferi was the last person left, and still drunk, she asked to stay over. Eridan said:  
At this point, you don’t even have to fuckin’ ask.  
They went through the scrapbook one more time before Feferi nodded off. She said this, stopped on a picture of the two of them in Paris:  
How did the world collude in such a wonderful way, that you and me got to meet each otter?  
“Everythin’ makes a lot more sense once you stop askin’ questions like that.”  
“We had our problems, but I’m so glad you worked through them.” She added almost urgently, “Haven’t we worked through them?”  
“Sure, Fef.”  
“You wouldn’t lie to me about that?”  
“Never.”  
She fell asleep on the couch and Eridan gave her another blanket so she wouldn’t wake up cold. He went to bed and thought about the trip they took to Paris a few years back, and how Feferi seemed very happy then, and how she would laugh and say things like, ‘I wish my French was as good as yours!’ He remembered fantasizing about getting married in the Chateau de Challain when they were 27, and proposing at the top of the Eiffel Tower like every other romantic asshole. He almost laughed at his past self. He almost felt sorry for him.  
Proposing to a girl who doesn’t love you, and fantasizing about your wedding in France. Getting high and jumping into a black hole with someone you barely know. What stupid, romantic, and empty thoughts.  
Sollux woke up the next morning alone in his apartment. Aradia had gone to the library, and Tavros had gone to church. Sollux went to make himself toast, and leaned against the counter as he watched it. Here’s what Sollux was thinking:  
Someone needs to do the dishes.  
He was trying to postpone a personal crisis, in which he, left completely alone, would have to analyze his confusing relationship with Eridan Ampora, which seemed to compound its own confusion with every meeting they had.  
That’s the work of chance, of course, not destiny. One would think that destiny could forge a clearer path, with less needy phone-calls and less aunt-like kisses.   
He wondered, for a brief moment, like everyone who develops a crush they’re particularly keen on suppressing, if he had accidentally fallen in love with him somewhere down the line, then made fun of himself for thinking he could fall in love with someone after three awkward months of knowing one another. He burned the toast even though he had been staring at it the whole time it was baking.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know cronus is extremely bisexual in canon but theres something extremely funny to me about envisioning him as an aggressively heterosexual libertarian

Feferi left Eridan’s apartment after breakfast and a pleasant conversation. Eridan thought the day would be a wonderful time to get a head start on his first assignment for a course on French modernism. He went to his desk, read the prompt, and started typing the beginning of a 250 word response essay. These were his first three attempts at beginning the assignment:

Chagall  
Marc Chagall was born in  
goddamn it wwrite your fuckin essay  
Marc Chagall’s early work was influenced byndddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddjl

He slammed his head on the keyboard. Even if the environment is ideal, it is nearly impossible to work when there’s something in mind that seems more pressing. He tried to read a book. He read the first sentence of Kafka on the Shore five times. He read the second sentence three times before giving up entirely. Here are two facts about Eridan Ampora, that you have most likely already guessed:

He reads the beginning of a lot of books  
He reads the ending of very few books

He tried watching Chopped on the Food Network, and got frustrated with the commercials. He began watching Chopped on Hulu. He imagined four versions of what Sollux would’ve said, had he been sitting on the couch with him for the entire episode:  
Rich asshole can’t sit through a few ads like the rest of us proles, huh?  
Hell yeah, fuck ads, I’m not gonna buy a fuckin’ Nutribullet no matter how many times you show me that same video of a woman who can’t use a blender  
Hey ED what’s your Hulu password? Asking for a friend.  
Look at this idiot, using the ice cream machine when there’s five minutes left. There’s 10 thousand dollars on the line, asshole!

He made it through one and a half episodes before realizing that he absolutely did not care about the outcome of the competition. He figured the whole thing would be more suspenseful for people who knew how to cook, or at the very least could understand the basics of cooking. He checked to see if Dave’s webcomic had updated. It did, and he found it as incomprehensible as always. He didn’t know why he still checked it. He started to watch some stupid rom com Karkat had been continuously recommending and found that he could only get through about 15 minutes of it. He texted Karkat about it for no other reason than to kill time.

CA: that movvie you told me to wwatch  
CA: is it actually mind numbing or is my brain just broken today

CG: THAT WAS UNNECESSARILY CONFRONTATIONAL.

CA: you of all people sayin that is ironic

CG: I DONT WANT TO ENGAGE IN A CONVERSATION WHICH YOU CLEARLY STARTED WITH THE SOLE INTENT OF BASHING MY INTERESTS.  
CG: JUST COME OVER NEXT WEEK. ILL WATCH IT WITH YOU. YOU LACK PATIENCE AND ARE MISSING THE NUANCE.  
CG: I DIDNT THINK I HAD TO SPOON FEED YOU THE MEANING OF MOVIES LIKE APPLESAUCE TO A STUPID ART STARVED TODDLER BUT I GUESS I DO.

CA: oh okay

Karkat didn’t respond after that. Eridan tried to start his history assignment again. These were his two attempts:

Marc Chagall’s later work was greatly influenced by the Nazi occupation of  
Marc Chagall was fuck i dont knoww this isnt due for another fuckin wweek

He looked to his counter, where he had a shitton of expensive leftover alcohol. He briefly entertained the idea of getting day drunk by himself. He went back and forth on that terrible idea for a little bit, and eventually decided to have one (1) glass of wine. 

He thought about Feferi when he was pouring it. He thought about how he was no longer completely in love with her, and how that thought scared him. There had never been a time in his adult life when he wasn’t, on some level, in love with Feferi. Standing there at four in the afternoon, the Sunday after his 21st birthday, was the first time that he could imagine a future in which she gave the toast at his wedding instead of kissing him at the altar, and that scared him. His fantasies may not have been realistic, but they were clear, and they were safe.

Goddamn, he thought, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.

He felt a short pang of guilt for skipping church, but it passed more easily than most of his thoughts tend to. Since when had he gone to church in college?

You’re in love with the idea of her. 

He got a text from Sollux then, which freaked him out. It was an intrusion into an intensely personal moment. He still didn’t have the number saved but he knew it was Sollux because he had memorized it.

TA: hey okay.  
TA: 2o thiing2 between you and me are weiird riight?  
TA: not 2uper weiird but ju2t 2ort of weiird.

CA: guess thats one way to start a convversation

TA: 2orry do you want me two 2tart wiith 2mall talk?  
TA: diid you read the 2bahj update?

CA: yeah it was awful  
CA: wwhy wwould he draww someone suckin a dogs dick

TA: at a certaiin poiint even iirony cant 2ave you from your2elf.

CA: i think he wwas still drunk when he did it  
CA: he was trashed last night

TA: iid liike two beliieve he wa2 drunk when he brought that mon2tro2iity iintwo thii2 world.

CA: on the off chance he wwasnt i dont think im gonna ask, evver

TA: 2o are you free for lunch next week or 2omethiing?  
TA: iive been thiinkiing and iive realiized that every 2iigniifiiicant iinteractiion between u2 ha2 taken place whiile weve been operatiing under 2ome weiird preten2e and ii thiink everythiing would be le22 weiird iif we had a completely neutral iinteractiion. 

CA: in that case isnt the neutrality the pretense  
CA: also weve gotten coffee like a thousand times together wwhat the hell are you evven talkin about

TA: cmon you cant hone2tly tell me you werent feeliing any of the tensiion there.  
TA: weve got a wor2e wiill they or wont they thiing than the leadiing hetero2exual protagonii2t2 of a niinetiie2 2iitcom.

CA: yeah okay thats fair

TA: 2o you agree. thiing2 are ju2t a liittle weiird.

CA: yeah also congrats because noww wweve come full circle  
CA: you really do like gettin right to the point dont you

TA: diid you want two do more 2mall talk fiir2t?  
TA: how2 your liibertariian brother? doe2 he 2tiill not beliieve iin global warmiing?

CA: wwoww okay talkin about my brother is that one things thats evven LESS appealin than talkin about my owwn inability to communicate in interpersonal relationships  
CA: you knoww wwhat this is fuckin dumb lets just do lunch   
CA: wwednesday at noon like last time?

TA: wedne2day.  
TA: waiit… where.

CA: oh god this wwas a wwhole fuckin thing last night  
CA: you pick

TA: no ii dont liike piicking.  
TA: you can piick wherever a2 long a2 iit2 cheaper than the vegan place.

CA: this feels mellowwer than last time

TA: yeah ii mean ii liike to thiink were friiend2 thii2 tiime around.  
TA: friiend2?

CA: isnt that wwhat wwe wwere gonna talk about wwednesday

TA: maybe? ii dont know? why are we so fru2tratiingly ambiiguous.

CA: fuckin hell wwe cant evven decide wwhere to eat

TA: you know what let2 ju2t 2ay iin thii2 moment we are friiend2. 

CA: you wwanna go to the mediterranean place by the bookstore

TA: god ye2 theiir falafel ii2 both cheap and deliiciiou2. why the fuck diidnt we go there la2t tiime?

CA: i wwanted vvegan food

TA: riight. how could ii forget.

CA: so wwednesday?

TA: yeah.

Eridan left his phone on the counter and brought the glass of wine with him to the couch. He put on another episode of Chopped and tried to care about it, but did not. Here is what was going through Eridan Ampora’s head as two contestants crowded the deep fryer in the appetizer round:  
So it’s not like I’m in love with him  
No of course not I’ve only known him for what  
Three months?  
Four at this point?  
Whatever I don’t need to be countin’ months with him anymore  
His analogy was kind of off  
Everyone knew that the heterosexual protagonists of every 90s sitcom would get together  
There wasn’t a will they or won’t they there  
Sol what the fuck are you talkin’ about  
Why am I arguing with him in my head  
I need to see Fef  
Yeah  
Fuck  
Goddamn

Eridan left his apartment so quickly that he didn’t turn off his lights, and he always turned off his lights. He ran all the way to Feferi’s and showed up, pounding on her door, sweaty and out of breath. His one purple streak of hair was plastered to his forehead.

“Fef,” he said when she opened the door, “hey.”

“Uh. Hey.”

He bent over and leaned his hand on the doorframe. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Not that I’m not happy to sea you but… did you come here with a reason or-”

“I needed to tell you that I’m not in love with you anymore, and I don’t know how to feel about it.”

“O-Oh! Oh… okay? Do you want to come in? Are you drunk?”

“I can… I can come in for a minute.” Eridan straightened himself up and walked in. “But I gotta get back n’ start an assignment I got about Chagall.” He lay down on her hardwood floor, and gently rested his arm under his head.

“That’s okay.” She sat down on the edge of her couch and looked down at him. Here’s something to know about Feferi:  
She doesn’t really understand Eridan  
She knows she doesn’t  
She does her best to love him anyways, unconditionally  
It’s hard sometimes to do that for a person  
For two seconds she looked down at Eridan and wondered why she ever tried at all  
After that she was resolute in her love once again, and felt guilty about doubting her reasons for it

Love is strange like that, when you’ve been loving someone for a long time, because it stops being something you do and starts being something you are.

“I still love you, because you’re my best friend and you’re like family, but I’m not… in love with you. Does that make sense?”

“I… frankly, Eridan, I didn’t know you still were.”

“Really?”

“Well… I had susfishions. Sometimes.”

“I thought you should know.”

“And I do, now.”

“It’s only five minutes to get here but I feel like I just ran a fuckin’ marathon. Am I gettin’ fat, Fef? Be honest.”

“Christ, Eridan, no, you’re not.”

“Okay, thank God.”

“Does this whole thing have something to do with- not to be nosy, but-”

“Yeah. Think it does.” Eridan turned on the floor and sat up. “Not, like, I’m not in love with him now, because that would be dumb, but… fuck, this sounds dumb too.”

“I won’t judge you.”

“I could see it happening and it doesn’t bother me. And the thought of maybe bein’ in love with someone else someday used to bother me, even just into last year. How fuckin’ pathetic, right?”

“No, no… it’s… I’m glad you’re realizing things about yourself.”

“Yeah but I sound like a fourth grade girl.”

“No you don’t.”

“Thanks. Feelin’s are hard. No wait that sounds dumb, too. I’m tired.”

“Don’t run back.”

“I won’t. I’m gonna call a Lyft.”

“I meant, you could walk.”

“Too late, I opened the app.”

Feferi smiled. “You’re so coddamn lazy.”

Eridan smiled, too. “Yeah, well. I have the money to be lazy.”

Feferi sat by her window and cried when Eridan left. It was caused by many things, most notably among them relief, stress, and the pent up need to have a good cry. Not completely irrelevant was her ever-present knowledge that some people out there really did think Amelia Earhart was in the moon.

That was the same night that Sollux asked Terezi to grant him access to her file on Eridan Ampora. Without needed much more explanation, she graciously accepted his request. To his utmost horror and absolute pleasure, Sollux Captor found nothing worth thinking about that he didn’t already know. You see, when he asked Terezi for everything she had complied about Eridan Ampora, he was looking for either a green light or a red light, or at the very least a yellow light, but what Sollux found instead was an inconclusive collection of a person in memories and bullet points, staring him down in the middle of an intersection and saying:

You can decide what color the light is this time, Sollux.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello sorry i've been gone for over a month but! college is kicking my ass. hope you like this chapter, we're almost at the end. Promise I haven't forgot about this story!

On Monday afternoon Eridan was at Karkat’s house, perfectly willing, for some odd reason, to sit through two hours worth of romcom and in-depth analysis of the plot and characters. The reasons he went to Karkat’s were twofold:  
Eridan Ampora had very few close friends  
He was eager to prove himself a decent companion to those few close friends he had

Karkat’s commentary was inane but endearing, in a way. The movie was about halfway done when Eridan asked, “Tell me, Kar, romance expert extraordinaire, why do we even like shit like this? Fuckin’… romcoms and whatever? My mother used to read those shitty romance novels you’d get in the checkout line of grocery stores. Always seemed like a form of sad escapism to me.”

Karkat craned his head towards Eridan slowly, then paused the movie. Eridan expected an outburst, but Karkat was incredibly calm. “So what if it is?”

“What?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s escapism, at the end of the day. So what? God, Who doesn’t need a little fucking escape once in a while? Who doesn’t like to look at two people kiss on a screen and say, yeah, they’ve got all their silly manageable quirks and all of their pedestrian shortcomings but they can still get someone to fall in love with them. There’s no uncertainty after that. They kiss at the end and there’s no more conflict. I mean, get real, right? But, fuck, you know what? For an hour an a half, I’ll sit here and believe all of this shit. I’m ready to believe for 90 minutes that every obstacle can be overcome, and that sometimes things are written in the stars. Why? Because it’s fucking nice.” He took a breath and added, slightly less passionately, “And besides, romance is the most overlooked science of our times.” 

Karkat was just below the level of self awareness, that he would have referenced fanfiction in his rant about pleasant romantic escapism.

“Never thought of it like that.”

Karkat leaned back into the couch and unpaused the movie. “Just watch the rest of it. It gets good here.”

“Cool.”

Eridan looked at his phone. Karkat noticed, but let it slide for the first time since the movie started. 

So Eridan walked into that Mediterranean place at exactly noon on Wednesday. Sollux came in at 12:03. Sollux had a habit of coming to things just before he would have had to apologize for being truly late. He was wearing a t-shirt that Eridan vaguely recognized as having something to do with a video game. He saw it then, once again. There was something about Sollux that Eridan found weirdly but undeniably attractive.

Sollux put his phone back in his pocket and reached out his hand for a handshake. “Hi, I’m Sollux, have we met before?”

“Really takin’ ‘no pretenses’ seriously, huh?”

“I’ve never taken anything seriously in my life.”

“I know for a fact you take both Chipotle and Flat-earthers incredibly seriously.”

“You’re right.” Sollux started to make his way into the line, and Eridan followed. “While you’re at it, you might as well throw in computer programming.”

“Why are they playing Evanescence in here?”

“To cultivate the atmosphere.”

“Cultivatin’ the atmosphere of it being 2003.”

“Sh, the base is gonna drop. Wake me up-”

“This song wasn’t even good in 2003.”

“What are you talking about? It went hard as hell then and goes even harder now. Also were’nt you, like, five back then? How would you know if it-”

The cashier interrupted him. “Uh… are you two paying together or-?”

Eridan said quickly, before Sollux could say anything, “Yeah. Can I get the falafel and eggplant pita? Sol what do you want-”

“Falafel pita.”

“Anythin’ else?”

“No.”

“Could we also get some Mosabaha?”

The cashier said, “Will that be all?”

“I think so.”

Eridan paid, then, like he always did. It was becoming less offensive to Sollux each time, but no less obnoxious. He went and got a seat.

“It’s still kind of unnerving,” Sollux said as Eridan sat down, “that you insist on not letting me pay for food.”

“Why, do you want somethin’ besides food? I’ll buy you a whole ass Honda Civic if you want.”

“Wow, I’ve never had a sugar daddy before.”

“Sugar daddy? We’re the same age. Wouldn’t I be more like a sugar… peer?”

“You’ve got a few months on me. That’s all it takes.”

“If you say so-”

“Wait, fuck, goddamn,”

“What.”

“We’re doing it again.”

“What?” Eridan said. He was extremely concerned that he had said something irredeemably off-putting.

“We’re flirting with each other.”

Eridan half-smiled in relief. “Yeah, I guess we are. Maybe that’s just what we do now.”

The falafel was ready, and they picked it up at the counter. It was kind of an awkward passage of 64 seconds. They looked at each other for a few more seconds once they sat down. Sollux wanted desperately to start eating his falafel, but something about that would have felt off.

He waited ten entire seconds before eating the falafel anyways.

“Holy shit this is good.”

Eridan took a smaller bite. He was tapping his foot. “Okay, so listen. I think, by this point,” he said very quietly, “I’ve been pretty clear about my intentions.” This is the other half of the statement that Eridan graciously left out:

So this is really up to you, if we get together for real or not, ya wishy-washy bitch.

“Have you?” Sollux did that thing where he raised exactly one eyebrow above his 3D glasses. Sollux didn’t bring up Feferi.

“Maybe less so than I’m tryin’ to believe.”

“That was a beautiful way of admitting you’re also an indecisive bitch.”

“Me? I’m the indecisive one?” 

Sollux took another bite of his falafel. With an unattractively full mouth, he said, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” This is what that statement sounded like with a mouthful of food and a speech impediment:

Peepo en grath houtheth fouldn fow thtoneth.

Eridan Ampora enjoyed being challenged. It said on Terezi’s secret document, in fact, that Eridan thrived off of competition. He tapped his foot and said, “Finish chewin’.”

Sollux lowered his one eyebrow and did. They waited in silence for five seconds. 

“Did you fuckin’ finish chewin’?”

“Yeah, does it look like I’m-”

Eridan leaned across the table, grabbed the collar of Sollux’s vaguely video-gameish t-shirt and kissed him for the first time, completely sober, and with complete intent. The intent, however, was nothing especially romantic. The intent of that kiss in the falafel restaurant boiled down to this:

Eridan likes to win.

Perhaps the tongue he slipped in had a little bit more to do with romance or what have you, but that’s not something I’m fully able to discern. The way Sollux returned the kiss in the falafel restaurant, full of intent and with no desire to ‘win’ (whatever that actually meant), most certainly had something to do with romance or what have you.

Eridan pulled away and sat back down. A few people looked at them for a minute, but carried on. “Fuck you,” Eridan said, “I’m not indecisive.”

“I think you still are, but you just got mad that I called you indecisive.”

“Come back to my place I’ll show you how fuckin’ indecisive-”

Sollux interrupted him by laughing. “You are literally the funniest person I’ve ever met without even trying to be funny.”

Eridan tried very hard to remain competitive and angry, but found that he couldn’t. He just smiled, too, and put his face in one hand. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Congrats for usurping KK on that front.”

“That’s pretty hard. He’s hilarious.”

“Yeah, well, he’s never offered to fuck me just because I called him ‘indecisive’.” He put an emphasis on the word ‘fuck’.

Eridan started to turn kind of red. “For the record, I didn’t think you’d agree-”

“But you were still serious about it,” Sollux said, smiling.

His smile faded away, and there was an awkward five seconds of silence in which they both seemed to realize exactly where a lot of chance and a little bit of inexplicable attraction had lead them (it is arguable, of course, that their innate attraction to one another was also a result of the beautifully complex mechanisms of chance). Eridan picked a piece of eggplant off of his sandwich and ate it. Sollux remembered, just for a few seconds, the time when they listened to Nirvana on the bus together, and their legs didn’t quite touch, but almost did.

Sollux shook his head, and his hair bounced around with it. That was one of those little things Eridan liked about him, his hair. “I read the file Terezi keeps on you.”

Eridan smiled back at the pure idiocy of it. He had thought Sollux was about to say something profound, and finally settle their rampant indecision towards one another. “What?”

“She keeps files on people. Didn’t you know?”

“That’s just about the weirdest thing I’ve learned today. What did it say?”

“Nothing much of interest.”

“No, now I’m dyin’ to know. What kinds of stuff did it say, at least?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know.”

“Why are you so fuckin’ vague all the time about absolutely everything?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even exist. Like, I’m Sollux, I guess, but just in a conceptual way.”

Eridan shook his head. “Christ, what does that mean? What in God’s name are you ever actually thinkin’ about?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yeah, Sol, I really fuckin’ do.”

They looked at each other for a few more seconds. In the most cliche and cutesy way, they took notice of each other’s eyes. Isn’t that such a strange thing, to describe something as insignificant as eyes in detail? It matters when you’re 20, though, and wondering who you’ll marry someday, and if they’ll be attractive, and if you’ll be happy. You can get lost in something stupid like the way light bounces off someone’s eyes.

Sollux debated responding to Eridan’s inquiry (what are you thinkin’ about?) in three different ways:  
Explaining the intricacies of his favorite esoteric programming language  
Insulting Eridan’s taste in music  
Saying exactly what was on his mind

For once, perhaps the first time in his entire life, Sollux actively decided to tell Eridan what he was thinking about in the falafel restaurant on that Wednesday afternoon in early February. “I’m thinking about how every time I’ve said something remotely substantial to you, I’ve been either drunk, high, both, completely manic, or in the middle of a dysphoria induced depressive episode.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean,” Eridan said, “so what?”

“What do you mean, ‘so what’?”

“I don’t know. I always regret shit I say. And I blame it on too little sleep or the glass of wine I had or whatever the fuck, but none of that makes a real difference. As much as I try to escape sometimes, I’m still fuckin’ me, always, despite my best efforts.”

“Okay...”

Eridan took another bite of his sandwich. “Somethin’ to think about.”

“It’s really not the same.”

“You’re right. It’s not. But still, Sol, it sort of is.”

And Sollux took a bite too. And they didn’t talk about whatever they were anymore that day, even though they never talked about it substantially in the first place. It would take them another phone call on Thursday night to get there. 

And, of course, an old song played at exactly the right time.

But if I were to make a guess, I’d say that you probably already figured that part out.

Sollux went to class later on Wednesday, and Eridan went back to his apartment. He sat on the couch in the quiet room and thought about that romcom Karkat made him watch. He wondered if that girl and her husband would still be happy years after they got married and the movie ended. He wondered if they would have gotten a divorce, or if they would have kids together like she always wanted.

He decided that they were magnificently happy together and never fought, and he left it at that.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologizing again for taking such a long break from updating! There's only one more Real Chapter after this one, and then an epilogue, so I hope to have them up by the end of the month. Thank you to everyone reading (esp those of you who leave such nice comments <3)

It was Eridan who called Sollux on Thursday night. He made the call at 9:34 pm, and it lasted until 10:58 pm. Before he made the call, he finally saved Sollux’s number in his phone. He saved the number as:

Sol

He put the gemini emoji next to it because that felt, on some weird level, correct.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, hey, me again.”

“Yeah, I know. I have your number saved.”

That made Eridan feel guilty for only saving Sollux’s number in his phone two minutes before he called him.

“Yeah I… also have your number saved. In my phone.”

“That’s cool, dude.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay not that it’s not… fine that you called me, but was there any reason you called me?”

Eridan shrugged even though Sollux couldn’t see him shrug. “I don’t know. I listened to the record.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was weird.”

“But did you like it?”

“Yeah, I think so. I need to listen again.”

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“Yeah.” Eridan tapped his fingers on his desk. He was staring at his computer screen, which had about a paragraph of an assignment typed on it. “So I don’t think I have a thing for Fef anymore.”

Sollux was quiet for a second. “So that’s-”

“Just thought, you know. You were hung up about it the other night and interpretin’ songs at me so I thought you should know.”

“So what does that-”

“Up to you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you realize that… you didn’t have a thing for her anymore? Don’t get me wrong, but didn’t you like her, for what, 8 years?”

“About that long.”

“So?”

“I mean, I’ve just been thinking about a lot a’ the things you said. It was a lot about my own self-indulgent fantasies for the future.” He smiled slightly, even though Sollux couldn’t see that, just like he couldn’t see the shrug. “My fake plastic love.”

“You know that songs about capitalism, right? When I’m manic I say a bunch of dumb shit that I think is brilliant.”

“I know. But it doesn’t matter all that much what it’s really about, does it?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“This may sound self-centered, but I don’t think so.”

“How postmodern of you.”

Eridan had, after all, read one fifth of Infinite Jest. “What can I say?” he said, “I have read Infinite Jest.”

Sollux wasn’t sure if he believed him and was too put-off by the topic to inquire further. “I know I brought it up but if you say anything else about postmodernism I’m going to hang up.”

“Aw, Sol-”

“I might just put my arm through the phone like they did in old cartoons and start strangling you.”

“Can I tell you a story about my brother to make it up to you?”

“God, yes.”

“He called me up the other day, and keep in mind he never calls me, and he told me that he invested 5,000 dollars in bitcoin.”

“Bitcoin? 5,000?”

“Yeah, he thought-” Eridan stifled a laugh, “You should hear him, sometimes. Like he’s gonna win the next goddamn Nobel prize in economics.”

“I’m begging you, ED, to just give me his phone number or something.”

“Maybe I will sometime. You have to let me listen to the phone call, though.”

“Of course.”

“Hell, if you’re ever in New York, you could just meet him.”

“I’d be honored,” Sollux said half-ironically.

The silence that followed felt awkward, because Sollux and Eridan had really only forced themselves onto the Cronus tangent again because they wanted to avoid talking about their relationship. This is what ran through Sollux’s head during their moment of silence:

I’ve never seen two people more afraid of their own sexual tension in my entire life. 

Eridan said, “You know on Monday Kar dragged me into watchin’ one of his dumb romcoms?”

“He’s tried to get me to do that with him. Didn’t know anybody actually took him up on his offers ever, maybe besides Dave. Or John. But I don’t really count him-”

“His film taste’s shit.”

“Yeah. He’d watch anything. But tell me about the romcom. How terrible was it?”

“Godawful. It was centered around this woman-”

“White woman, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, of course. And blonde.”

“Okay,” Sollux said through a suppressed laugh, “tell me more.”

“She was a thirty year old lawyer and she had everythin’... get this… but a man in her life.”

Sollux gasped.

“And you know. She meets this guy who’s just a waiter instead of a lawyer, and they fall in love through a series of dumb and unrealistic shenanigans, and they fall in love even though they’re both insufferable.”

“Do they get married at the end?”

“Oh my God, how did you know?”

“I wracked my brain for the most cliche and expected ending of a romcom possible.” Sollux smirked, but of course, Eridan didn’t see that. He heard it, though, to the extent that you can hear a smirk through the phone. “Or maybe I’m just a genius.”

“You’re probably much smarter than the people who wrote the script of that movie.”

“I’m flattered even though you’re completely correct.”

“God you’re cocky-”

“Cocky? No, remember, I don’t have one.”

“Oh? I thought that was like, a thing, you know… that you didn’t like talkin’ about?”

“Eh. Sometimes. But sometimes you put all of that aside to make a really good pun.”

Eridan laughed. “Yeah.”

“To be honest? It helps to cope with all of life’s bullshit.” Sollux then, too, laughed nervously. “Humor is humanity’s greatest defense mechanism.”

“You wanna know somethin’ dumb as shit?”

“Of course.”

“I was thinkin’ about that romcom a shitton all week.”

“For real?” He heard the smirk there, too. 

Here is what Eridan said next:

I’d like to think that someday, I’ll be as happy as that stupid blonde lawyer and her stupid waiter husband.

Sollux waited a few seconds too long to respond. “Wouldn’t we all?”

“Yeah, I mean, I guess we would.” Eridan paused, and sighed. “I think about my mom a lot, when I think about shit like that.”

“Mhmm?”

“Like, I just think of her readin’ those stupid romance novels and chain smoking on the porch like she’s not brilliant enough to be readin’ literally anythin’ else and I think, oh my God, fuck, what if I end up like that?”

“I have no idea what to tell you about that.”

“I wasn’t askin’ you to like, neutralize my existential dread or somethin’. It’s just… I get to thinkin’ about that kind of stuff a lot. My whole thing with Fef was… I’m pretty sure it was just a defense mechanism that kept me from realizing that the whole beautiful fairytale marriage isn’t actually a guarantee.”

Sollux, again, was quiet on the other line.

“Sorry for bein’ weird.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m just… thinking about it.”

“About what?”

“I mean, my parents’ marriage always seemed fine. Not like, perfect fairytale love, but they get along. Sometimes I wonder if me and MT weren’t so expensive and stressful they might be better off. But, I guess, when you have kids to have to take that kind of thing into account. We don’t have a model for the that kind of shit- it- it never happens to the people in romcoms.” Sollux sighed then. “I just want to know that whoever, just whoever I’m with, I guess-”

“We’re really fuckin’ talkin’ in hypotheticals like this, right the fuck now.”

“Yeah. You know what? Maybe we will get together, I mean at this point it’s pretty obvious we’re not going to be ‘just friends’, right?”

This is what Eridan was thinking in the few seconds after Sollux said that:  
Holy shit  
Okay yeah  
Here we go  
Ampora you smooth motherfucker its finally going to happen

“I mean, were we ever friends?”

“Sort of. I don’t know. There was… there was always kind of a lot going on here.”

“Do you want to come over?”

“Ha, wish I could. I put a load of laundry in just before you called. And it’s also… like… a Thursday night.”

“You’ve got an early class?”

“Yeah. The professor takes a participation grade too, which sucks, because it’s not something I actually care about. It’s a class I’m taking for my humanities requirement.”

“What class?”

“Intro to modern philosophy.”

“Who are you reading?”

“ED me telling you what I’m doing in that class will do absolutely nothing except give you another opportunity to say something irredeemably pretentious.”

“You’re probably right.” There was a pause. “But really what are you guys reading.”

“Okay, fine. Right now, Kant.”

“Haha Immanuel Kant? More like Immanuel Cu-”

“I’ve already heard the polisci bro who sits next to me make that joke three times.”

“Give him a high five for me.”

“I would, but I’m afraid that if my skin made contact with his it might make me straight.”

“Oh, in that case, don’t risk it. It would be a tragedy for me n’ you both.”

“You know, Rose is throwing another party tomorrow night.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I heard.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not as exclusive as last time. I think there’ll be more people there. I was thinking if you wanted to go-”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Sollux said, “If this isn’t the right time, I’m sorry but should we do that whole ‘what are we’ thing now or-”

“Y’know, Sol, I know you get antsy about this shit, but we could just start with a date.”

“I’d… hm. I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“But, I mean, I’m always anxious about this shit because, not to sound like… a manic pixie dream girl again… but there really is a lot going on…. here. Like you said the other day. And sometimes the stuff like the mania is funny as shit, like whatever the hell I was trying to tell you about bitcoin, but sometimes it’s really, really not.”

“Whatever.”

“What?”

“Okay, not whatever, but Christ, Sol, you don’t have to try and apologize for havin’ a mental fuckin’ illness. It’s just part of whatever’s goin’ on. Not to be corny but it doesn’t make me like you any less.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Fuckin’ manic pixie dream girl.”

“So after the scene phase did you shift right into whatever hipster shit you have going on here or was there a secret intermediate phase in your adolescence? Did you ever like anime?”

“I can proudly say that I never was an anime kid.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. Some of the most incredible pictures I’ve ever seen were of AA’s anime phase.”

“Wait, can you send me them?”

“Yeah, remind me this weekend. I’ll have to comb through some of my old files to find them again.”

“Fef was kind of into Sailor Moon n’ some 90s shit for a while but I don’t think she was ever an Anime Kid, you know? Like, you know the ones-”

“Like AA was.”

“Or did you ever have those kids in your high school who would wear, like horns?”

“What?”

“There was this anime where the characters had horns, I think. And there was a guy in my high school who would just wear them in class. One time I was in a history class with ‘im and the teacher had to tell him to take ‘em off.”

“God, I’m glad I’m not in high school anymore.”

“Me too.”

“Tell me, how much fucking alcohol do you still have from your party last weekend?”

“Enough to fill up one a’ those kiddy swimmin’ pools.”

“Goddamn,”

“You should come over before Rose’s party. We could pregame or something.” Eridan took a breath in and out. “Do you have any strong opinions on the TV show “Chopped”?”

“Why, do you?”

“I was just watchin’ it the other day n’ I was… wonderin’, I guess. Since you’re both a huge asshole and also weirdly good at makin’ food.”

“I just wonder why they’re always trying to whip out the ice cream maker when there’s 4 fucking minutes left. Don’t sacrifice 10 thousand dollars just for the drama.”

“That’s weird.”

“What?”

“That’s exactly what I thought you’d say about it.”

Sollux laughed. “I’m not a complicated guy, I guess.”

“Nah, everyone’s complicated in their own ways. You just have predictable opinions on reality TV.”

“I’ll take that.”

Eridan thought about saying a few things. Some of them were further pedantic observations about reality TV and anime kids, some of them were more poignant observations about how his family life had fucked up his conceptions of love, and some of them were complaints about the school work he was sort of behind on. Instead, he said this:

I know this is corny as hell, but I really fuckin’ like you.

Sollux said:

You’re a dumb bitch, and I really like you, too.

Eridan said, “Well, glad that’s finally out of the way.”

“Yeah, it was starting to get kind of obnoxious.”

“Do you remember that time you called me, and you asked me to tell you stories and read the washin’ machine manual to you.”

“Yeah. Again- I’m sorry about-”

“No, I mean. I kind of wanted you to tell me one.”

“A story?”

“Yeah. Just about anythin’. Only if you want, though.”

“No, that’s fine. Just give me a sec, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Eridan heard typing on Sollux’s side.

“What’re you typin’?”

“It’s code for a class.”

“Okay.”

“It’s supposed to be a mechanism that sorts and does some calculations with data input by the researches. It’s a collaboration with the psychology department- or just one professor, I think. Usually I don’t give two shits about the codes I write for classes, but whoever makes the best program is getting paid a little bit for it. And also, I read up on the study this guy’s trying to do, and I think it’s pretty cool.”

“What’s the study?”

“I mean, I don’t know the exact details, but it’s supposed to measure the way that schizophrenic people react to different forms of music therapy. As much as I like to dick around and code viruses and stuff, there’s something kind of nice about knowing that maybe my coding could go towards helping someone. Not to sound like a cheesy idealist.”

“You don’t. Okay, you do, but there’s nothin’ wrong with that. You don’t have to be cynical and ironic every second of the goddamn day.”

“You’re right, I guess.”

“You told me that it gets tirin’. That time you were kind of manic and came to my apartment.”

“Music therapy was one of the things that really helped my brother after his accident. Music was one of the first things he really responded to.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I think I thought of a story, if you still want to hear it.”

“Oh? Yeah, I would.”

“Back when I was a senior in high school I was kind of a jackass, especially once I got into college. My school sucked, right. And I remember outside we had this weirdly huge ‘no skateboarding’ sign. So one night I just drove out all by myself and stole it. I had put on all black and a ski mask like a tool so that the security wouldn’t be able to tell who I was from the cameras. I remember next day the principle practically had an aneurysm. They went around interrogating students for weeks about it. Never found me. The sign’s still in my room. Anarchy 1, Law and Order 0, I guess. If you ever come to Ohio I’ll show it to you.”

“Wait, you stole a sign? Like, school property?”

“Well, it’s my property now. Don’t be a square.”

“That’s fuckin’... that’s ballsy.”

“I can tell you don’t approve. Don’t worry, my sign stealing days are behind me. I just think it makes for an interesting story.” 

“That it does.”

A timer played on Sollux’s end of the line. “Wait, shit, my laundry’s done. Should I call you back?”

“No, you know… I should really get started on this assignment. It’s been stressin’ me out.”

“Yeah, yeah. You should do that.” Eridan heard shuffling on Sollux’s side as he got up. “But uh… I’m glad you called.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. What time does the party start? 10 right?”

“I think so. But you don’t wanna go right at 10, right?”

“No, who do you think I am, TZ? I always like to be a little fashionably late.”

“Sol last time I saw you at a party you were wearin’ a plain black t-shirt with a hole in one a the armpits.”

“It’s avant-garde. You wouldn’t understand it.”

Eridan smiled. “Right, right. You wanna come over around 9:45, 10ish? We can do a fewshots of whatever you want and then head over.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you.”

Eridan said, “Goodbye,” right after Sollux hung up. Sollux, of course, always started and cut off conversations abruptly.

Eridan twirled around in his desk chair for a few minutes, absentmindedly. He thought about a lot of things, including:  
How he and Sollux were just shy of being an actual, official thing  
How Cronus would react if he knew that Sollux stole a “no skateboarding” sign from his school  
His own conflicting feelings about petty theft  
If he and Sollux were going to kiss or something when he came over, or what the whole situation there was going to be  
How Alexander the Great was probably gay  
How his friends would react once they became an actual thing  
How his parents would react if he ever brought Sollux back to New York  
Getting married in the Chateau de-  
Wait, scratch that  
Too early for that, Eridan   
Take it back a few notches

Eridan felt kind of dumb, but laughed it off. At least his silly romantic fantasies were being directed towards someone who actually reciprocated. Finally, he was able to get past the first sentence of his art history paper.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue will probably be up at the end of next weekend. hope u like this ending though i got emotional writing it

The Friday of Rose’s party was a strange day. Eridan made coffee at his apartment, because he thought it would be awkward if he ended up seeing Sollux before he was supposed to come over. After all, Eridan always did like the idea of fairytale romances, coming together exactly when you were supposed to, all that stuff that chance doesn’t really give a shit about.

Sollux skipped coffee altogether; he wasn’t nearly as addicted. More often than not he went to the place on campus because he knew he’d see Eridan and that Eridan would probably pay for his drink. Instead, that day, he walked to campus with Aradia.

“You know,” Aradia said, “I think it’s very interesting how you and Eridan Ampora went from kind of hating each other to being decent friends in a matter of four or so months. I feel like I have whiplash from the whole thing.”

“Yeah? Me too.”

“You’re… friends, right? I mean, you’ve never been super upfront about this stuff… but….”

“Uh,” Sollux brought his hand up to the back of his neck. “About that…”

“Oh my God,” Aradia said, “Oh my God, are you serious? You’re fucking serious, aren’t you? Sollux!” She punched him lightly on the arm.

“It’s not… It’s not official, or anything, I don’t think. I don’t know.”

“You’re so flustered! I’ve never ever seen you flustered. This is adorable. Does anyone else know?”

“No! Shh! Okay, well I don’t think so. It’s been weird for a while, you know? But last night he just called me and was like ‘hey let’s go on a date for real some time’.”

Aradia smiled widely. “Wait so you guys have kissed, right?”

Sollux looked embarrassed. “You remember Rose’s last party?”

Aradia practically screamed. Here’s what she said, looking at Sollux, while Sollux was looking at the ground:

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Dave knew it too! But then you said ‘Noooooo, AA, how could you ever think such a thing?’ I’m so happy for you, but I hate you, Sollux Captor!

To which Sollux replied:

Don’t worry, I hate me, too.

Other than Aradia, Sollux didn’t manage to tell anyone before the party. Eridan, too, managed to only tell Feferi. It was more of an active confession on his part, though, as he called her up in the middle of the day just to tell her.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Fef?”

“Erifin… is this urgent?” She whispered, “I’m in a lecture right now!”

“Yeah, it’s urgent. Can you go into the hall?”

“Okay, I will.” There were about thirty seconds of shuffling and moving around on Feferi’s side before she came back and said, full volume, “Alright, what’s up? Do you need my kelp with something?”

“Not really I just wanted to say, like, me n’ Sol are like, a thing now. I think.”

Feferi tried hard to not laugh, but in the end, could not. “I’m happy for you but you pulled me out of class for that?”

“...Yeah.”

“You’re ridiculous. But you know, I love you.”

“I know.”

They were both silent for a few seconds. Feferi thought:

I’m so glad he’s over me. 

Eridan thought:

I’m so glad I got over her.

It wasn’t a thought of malice, on either side. It was, simply, a realization that instances of unrequited love can be absolutely draining. The longer it lasts, the more soul-sucking it becomes. In light of that, Feferi said, “Thank you for calling.”

“I just thought I should.”

“I should get back to-”

“You should get back to your lecture.”

“Love you, bye.”

“Love ya.”

So Eridan went home kind of early that day- 4:30, right after his last class was finished. He thought he could kill time by making dinner and watching TV or something. Sollux stayed on campus late- he thought he could kill time by trying to get work done. (He got minimal work done, but he did kill a lot of time trying.)

Rose passed Sollux, looking positively focused on his computer screen. “You sure are working hard, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

This is the website Sollux was on:

twitter.com

Rose sat in the unoccupied chair next to him. “You’re coming to my party tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Sollux said, without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Don’t get stoned and miss most of it again. That was no fun. We missed you!”

“I’ll try not to. Is Dave bartending again?”

“He insisted.”

“I figured.” Sollux scrolled a little bit more. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there. I just have to finish up some stuff here first.”

“Very important stuff, it looks like.”

“No, I mean, it is. I’m thinking of a good tweet to send to Ted Cruz.”

“You could reference that porn tweet he liked.”

“Played out, Rose, that’s played out. Dead meme. Same with the zodiac killer stuff. I want something fresh.”

“If you truly want to be fresh, I’d suggest tweeting one of Ted Cruz’s less targeted colleagues, like Marco Rubio.”

“Oh, brilliant.” Sollux started typing furiously, “I’m gonna send him a link to the porn tweet Ted Cruz liked.”

Rose got up from her seat. “Right. So I’ll see you in a few hours?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’d never pass on free alcohol.”

These were the things Eridan had done by 9 pm, in his attempt to kill time:  
-Listened to the entirety of For Emma, Forever Ago,  
-Watched three entire episodes of Cutthroat Kitchen (a little more viewer-friendly for non-cooks than Chopped, Eridan decided)  
-Googled “Franz Kafka gay?”  
-Googled “Kafka bisexual?”  
-Read the first page of Gravity’s Rainbow 8 times  
-Played through three levels of some inane arcade game app that he had downloaded on his phone and never bothered to delete

He put down his phone then, sighed, picked it up, and texted Sollux.

CA: hey if you wwanted to come ovver noww or wwhatevver im not doin anythin

TA: wow you 2ure 2ound exciited.

CA: just come ovver  
CA: plea2e

TA: omww

Eridan wondered how long it would take Sollux to get to his apartment. He thought about venmoing him money to get an Uber, pulled up the app, then closed the app, and decided it would be overkill, especially since he was coming an hour earlier than planned. He opened the app again, thought that venmoing the money for an Uber would be kind of funny or flirty, then closed the app, and decided that it would come off as desperate. He took the copy of Gravity’s Rainbow off the table and replaced it with a book he thought Sollux would find less pretentious, then put Gravity’s Rainbow back on the table, because if they were going to make this work he didn’t want to have to constantly try and alter himself to be easier to relate to. He shuffled through his records, too, and thought about putting on that record Sollux gave him for his birthday, decided against it, and put on something he figured Sollux wouldn’t know. He went to the counter, then, and thought about putting some of the alcohol away, then put it all out, then put all of it away except for the half-finished bottle of Patron, then put that away and swapped it for the strawberry Grey Goose, because he didn’t think that night was a Tequila night, by any means.

It was just as he sat on the couch that he heard a knock at the door.

He took a breath before opening it, thought about leaning casually against the door frame, figured that would look stupid, then just opened the door already. “Uh… hey,” he said tensely.

Sollux laughed. “Hey.”

“What’s so funny?”

“This, definitely this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I come in now… or?”

Eridan stepped to the side. “Oh, yeah. Fuck. Sorry. This is more awkward than I thought it would be.”

Sollux looked at Eridan’s feet, then his legs, up and down his whole body. “Sort of like when we were at that vegan place. Fuck, that was three months ago already. Holy shit, right? You wanna do that thing again where we count to three and have to look each other in the eyes?”

“No, oh my God.”

Sollux kicked off his dirty shoes by the entrance, then went over to the counter. “Aw, none of the expensive Tequila tonight?”

“Nah, I don’t wanna get fucked up tonight. Or at least, not super fucked up.”

“Hm. That’s fair.” Sollux went to the counter, and started pouring himself a shot. “What’s this?”

“What?”

“The music.”

Here’s something about Sollux that you may have picked up after the past 42,000 or so words of getting to know him:

He’s particularly terrible at opening up, and likes to avoid important conversations by talking about literally anything else.

Eridan walked over to the other side of the counter, leaned his elbows on the surface, and watched Sollux pour his shot. “The 1975.”

“That’s one of the dumbest names for a band I’ve ever heard.” He took another shot glass, and started pouring one for Eridan. “The song isn’t half bad, though. Sort of catchy.”

“You know, I told Fef we were sort of a thing today.” That was, of course, Eridan’s way of trying to breach the topic subtly.

“Yeah, I sort of told AA, too.” Sollux handed him the shot glass. “So you wanna kiss now, or what?”

Eridan was so taken aback by the sudden forwardness that all he could say was, “Before… before or after the shot?”

“I mean, if we do it after it will taste like alcohol.”

Eridan shrugged, sort of smiling for the first time since Sollux had come in. “Yeah, but it’s not this is the first time we’ve kissed.”

Sollux held up his shot glass. “So cheers?”

“Cheers to what?”

Sollux thought for a moment. “Cheers to being fucking gay.”

Eridan laughed, and they clinked glasses. “Cheers to bein' fuckin’ gay!”

And they drank. Sollux shuddered. “It’s surprising how that can taste so much better than Pinnacle and still be disgusting.”

“Alcohol is magical, isn’t it?”

Then they looked at each other, quietly, sort of awkwardly. Sollux said:

So, uh, we’re gonna. We’re gonna kiss now.

Eridan said:

I mean, yeah. If you still want to.

Sollux said:

Why would I have changed my mind in 15 seconds? 

Just as Eridan finally started leaning in, there was a knock at the door. They paused, both thought about just doing it anyway, and then Eridan turned away to get the door. 

He was greeted by Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas. Dave said, “Eridan, you’ve still got leftovers from your birthday, right?”

Eridan looked at him for a minute, right in the shades, then sort of back at Sollux, then at Karkat, who gave him a ‘this wasn’t my idea’ look. “Uh… yeah? Do you… did you want some of it? Is that… yeah did you want some?” He sort of stepped to the side to let them in, if they wanted to, but tried to make it clear that they weren’t exactly welcome.

Dave walked in anyway. “Hell yeah, dude, thanks for the offer.” He looked at Sollux, for a second, back at Eridan, then back at Sollux. “Oh, hey, Sollux.” It was hard to see under the shades at all the hair, but Dave was raising his eyebrows. He couldn’t raise one at a time, like Sollux. In fact, no one else in their immediate friend group could do that except Sollux.

Sollux was leaning on the counter with one elbow, his head in his hand. “Hey, Dave. KK.”

“Are we… interrupting something?” Dave said.

“No,” Eridan said at the same time that Sollux said, “Yes.”

Karkat laughed. “You guys are fucking idiots.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Sollux said in return.

“Listen,” Dave said, already pouring himself a shot of Grey Goose, “We were already on our way to Rose and Jade’s, and just stopped by because I thought it would be funny. We can legit scram if you want.

“Why were you on your way there already? It’s fucking 9:30.”

“He was going to play bartender again,” Karkat said with an eye roll.

“Play?” Dave asked, “As if anyone else here knows how to make a sex on the beach.”

“Vodka, right?” Sollux said, still looking down into his hand. 

“Vodka,” Eridan said, “Peach schnapps, cranberry juice, and orange juice.”

“Fuck you for knowing that,” Karkat said.

They ended up staying and having inane banter with one another for 20 minutes before Dave insisted on going so he’d be early enough to manage the alcohol, and Eridan just figured at that point, they’d tag along.

Vanessa Carlton's “A Thousand Miles” was playing as they got there. Dave said, going in for a hug with Rose, “What’s this? A song I actually know the name of? Where’s the Rose I’ve come to know and love?”

Karkat went over to Kanaya, sitting by the window, to say hello. He waved to Rose, who waved back. Rose looked back at Dave and said, “Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps you were just getting too comfortable with your perception of me.”

Dave laughed and shook his head.

“The theme of tonight is “90’s and 2000’s throwback in an effort to be more… ahem… relatable.”

“You’re too much,” Dave said, and headed over to the alcohol counter.

“Hi Sollux, Eridan,” Rose said, “Strange to see you both here so early. Before Terezi, even.”

“It’s all Dave.” Eridan took off his coat (no scarf this time) and hung it on the wall behind him. “He came over to my apartment at 20 after nine askin’ if I had any alcohol left, so we just took off with ‘im when he wanted to.”

“Oh, so you’re already drunk.”

“He may be,” Sollux said, gesturing to Dave. “The rest of us only had one shot.”

“Of course, of course.”

People started to trickle in, then, slowly, starting with Terezi and Vriska at exactly 10:01. By 11 or so, it was full of friends and strangers alike. Eridan was off with Feferi, then, having a conversation that felt decidedly more intimate than their conversations had for the past few years. Sollux looked at them from the counter, then back at Dave. “Can you make me something?”

“Like what?”

“Surprise me. Something dumb and excessive and like, super gay.”

“My specialty. I only regret that Rose doesn’t have any of those little umbrellas to put in it once I’m done.”

“Tragic.”

“So,” Dave said, pulling out the vodka, “You two really did hook up last time, right? That party in November?”

Sollux smiled, kind of embarrassed. He looked at his fingernails. “If you could call it that. We got really high and made out.”

“Oh my God.”

“It’s weird, right? I feel like the last few months we’ve been sort of trying to bounce back from that, and now… here we are. Full circle.”

“Were you guys making out before me and Karkat got to his place?”

“We were… uh… about to.”

“Sorry dude.”

“‘S alright. Fucking cockblock.” Sollux looked across the room again. Eridan caught his eye and waved. Sollux waved back. “I guess I’ll have plenty of opportunities now, huh?” He watched Dave pour some lime juice into the glass and added, “Remember how that night you said I should bring him a drink?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s something you said. When he came in.”

“Oh yeah. I was trying to get you guys together for a while.”

“Really?”

“Mhmm. Not, like. I wasn’t going ham on it but, you know. I was nudging. Sort of like you guys were two elderly men who fell asleep in the movie theatre. Just a little- poke poke. I gave up on it after Christmas, though. You guys… you had your own shit with one another, it looked like, and I didn’t think anyone was gonna figure it out except for you.”

“Was it obvious?” Sollux asked.

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I don’t think everyone knew that you made out but everyone knew that it was a little weird with you guys, in that way it gets weird between people who might get together.”

“Huh.”

Dave handed him a cosmo. “Here you go.”

“Oh, thanks. And a beer for me.”

“What?”

“This is for him.”

Dave smiled. “Taking me up on that suggestion, what, four months late now?”

“Never late than never.”

Dave handed him a beer. “Go get him, tiger.”

“Thanks.”

Feferi smiled at Sollux as he approached. He put the cosmo into Eridan’s hand.

“For me?” he asked. 

“Yeah. Come here often?”

“No, it’s my first time.”

Feferi looked at them. They looked kind of weird together. Not bad, but strange. They were visual opposites, in a lot of ways. She thought it was cute, though, endearing in a way. Maybe she was just relieved to see them happy, finally. “What’s that, Sollux? It looks good.”

“Oh! I uh… I don’t know. I asked Dave to surprise me.”

Eridan took a sip. “It’s a cosmo, Fef.”

Sollux smiled widely. “I asked him to make something really gay.”

“Fittin’. You wanna try a sip, Fef?”

“I think,” she said, “I’ll get my own. Or I’ll ask Dave to surprise me with something else.”

She left them, then, alone in one of those little party enclaves that people carve out. “Do you want a sip, Sol?”

“Yeah, I’ll try it.” He took a sip, spilled a little on the corner of his mouth, then wiped it away. “Fuck, that’s kind of good.”

“He’s a weirdly good bartender.”

“He’s good at all sorts of weird shit. You know he does ventriloquism?”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. Nothing surprises me anymore.”

The music had been good for most of the night. Rose seemed to have picked just the right balance of hype and relatively calm which, for a throwback party, can be difficult. As Eridan and Sollux stood in the corner of the party, talking about cosmos and Dave Strider, Shakira’s classic “Hips don’t Lie” was coming to a close.

“I hope they play Mr. Brightside next,” Eridan said, “It hasn’t come on yet and it has to, at some point. It’s basically a rule at college parties that at some point, Mr. Brightside will play, and everyone will lose their shit to it.”

“White people lose their shit to any pop song written before 2010.”

“Mr. Brightside especially.”

“Okay, maybe.”

The Shakira song ended, then, and everyone heard the first chords to Come as you are, that old Nirvana song that Eridan heard coming down from his high at the Halloween party, that song that he recognized Sollux listening to on the bus, the namesake of this silly little love story that seems to have practically sprawled the length of a short novel. And if that’s where it started, this is where it ends.

“Kitten!” Dave yelled from the bar, “You like this song, don’t you?”

Eridan said more quietly, “You like this song, too. I remember… you were listenin’ to it on the bus. And I saw it right before I was gonna say somethin’ dumb.”

Sollux smiled, and leaned up against the wall. “Did you know the reason I decided I was gonna stop hating you is because I thought it was cute that you lied about knowing more than one Nirvana song?”

Eridan practically went red with embarrassment, but it was difficult to see in the dim lighting of the party. “Oh my God. I’m so fuckin’ dumb. I hate myself.”

“Well, that’s okay. I don’t hate you.” 

The lyrics started over the heavy guitar. “At the risk of bein’ corny, these lyrics are kind of… fittin’, I guess? Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to-”

Sollux interrupted him with a kiss. He had to get up on his tiptoes to do it. It was fully out in the open, but it felt sort of private, too, like it had been building up, and then at once, all that pressure was released like a calm ocean wave.

These were some things Eridan was happy about:

Too many to list.

And aren’t you a little bit tired of lists by now?

But in the middle of all those buzzing thoughts, he found himself incredibly thankful that he went to that party all the way back in October, and how Feferi left him, and how he got so crossed that he couldn’t function, and how Sollux made fun of him for it and how he made fun of Sollux’s lisp, and how Dave let Karkat play that one last song one everyone started to clear out. What a strange and ridiculous chain of events, what a beautiful story that chance wrote.

Terezi, piss drunk, saw them, stood on the coffee table, and started to cheer. “They’re kissing!” she said, “They’re finally kissing!”

Kanaya (more sober and less legally blind) helped her off the table, but not before everyone took heed of what she said.

It was weird, but it was nice, in a way, to be recognized. People cheered and shouted, in a silly, drunken way, happy about hookups and young love and the way romcoms and fanfictions end and everything in between. They forgot about it when Mr. Brightside came on. Sollux and Eridan went back to kissing and lost track of time. 

“You wanna get out of here?” Sollux said after the first batch of people started to clear out.

“Where were you thinkin?”

Sollux shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s say we jump into the nearest wormhole and see where it takes us?’

“I can’t think of anythin’ better.”


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i went to an art museum last week,

Eridan insists on taking Sollux to an art museum when the year sprawls lazily into Summer. You can picture it in whatever art museum you like, maybe one you’ve always wanted to visit, or maybe one that’s intensely familiar to you. They stand close to one another- not quite touching, but close enough- and stare at a painting in the contemporary art (post 1950) wing. 

“So tell me,” Sollux says jokingly, “what does it all mean?”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

Sollux gets a little too close to the painting, “Like, this squiggly line? What it all mean? Mass consumerism? The amorality of the modern age? The artist’s sexual frustrations?”

“Sol, don’t get so close.”

A museum guard comes from around the corner and tells Sollux to step away from the painting. He does.

Eridan laughs at him and says, “Maybe it means whatever you want it to mean.”

“That’s some weak shit. Either make a statement or get out.”

“Maybe the statement is in the ambiguity.”

“Weak shit.”

The past few months have been good. Sort of strange, because they’re a strange pair to begin with, but they’ve been happy. Eridan’s been worried about his thesis, and whether he wants to apply to grad school or if he wants to get some sort of job, and what he wants to do with his life. Sollux is worried if he’s been networking enough to get a decent job after graduation, even though he hates networking, but he’s optimistic for the internship he’s starting next week at a tech company. It’s nothing other people their age aren’t thinking about, too.

Sollux tossed out the idea of Eridan meeting his family, but nothing’s come of it, yet. Eridan’s still afraid his family might say something racist or classist or homophobic, even though Sollux assures him everything would probably be fine, and that he just wants to meet Eridan’s weird libertarian brother and his chain smoking mom and his CEO father. Like all couples, though, they’ve got things to work through and things to fear and things to look forward to. They’ve been learning about each other the last few months, getting used to being a couple and growing into each other. 

They go down to look at the Islamic art in the basement. There’s no one else down there except for a mother and her son, even though the museum is fairly crowded. She’s pointing out the patterns in a mosaic tile behind a glass case.

“It’s kinda weird how there’s just like… floor tiles here. Teapots n’ cups n’ stuff.”

Sollux shrugs. “It’s a culture that saw art in the everyday.”

“Your family’s Muslim, aren’t they?”

“Eh… sort of. We were never super devout, I mean, I’m more of an Atheist now.” He got a little too close to one of the pieces again, but there were no guards to tell him to step away. “I still consider myself connected to the culture. What about you, I mean, what do you think of all that French art? Who’s that one guy you liked? Shamal?”

“Chagall? Yeah, well- he wasn’t exactly French, also not not French. I don’t know. I wrote an essay about him back in January. I got a B on it.”

“Tragic.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m still not over it. N’ I don’t know… don’t feel super connected to any of it, culturally.”

“Maybe you would feel more connected to it if they put French tea pots in museums.”

“Hm. Maybe I would.”

“High art, low art, whatever. I don’t think there’s a real distinction. Art’s all around us.”

“Interesting opinion…” Eridan says, not totally willing to let go of his elitism, but somewhat willing to consider the prospect that a French teapot may be just as much a piece of art as an original Cezanne. He looks at Sollux, pressing his face up against the glass like a kid, and finds himself glad that they’re so different. Here is what he’s thinking:

Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach  
As I want you to be

And he thinks about that romcom he watched with Karkat all those months ago, and how those kinds of movies with such ridiculous happy endings used to make him sad. He feels silly about that, now that he’s falling in love with a person for the first time. 

They go back upstairs and around the edges of all the exhibits and find a dark room where they’re showing one of those art films. There’s another couple already inside and they sit on the bench beside them. They don’t know who initiates it, but they find themselves holding hands, like they’re hands were simply two magnets drawn to one another. The film is abstract and bizarre, Eridan would never admit it but he doesn’t really get it; Sollux isn’t confident in his knowledge of art to assert it but he thinks the film is a commentary on neocolonialism. He’s right but he doesn’t care about the film nearly as much as Eridan, who’s hopelessly lost watching it. 

They watch it in silence for about a minute, until the other couple leaves, and then they laugh, not really at anything. They kiss once, then twice, because no one else is in there. For now, everything’s alright. Everything’s pretty good, in fact.

“Art museums are weird places,” Sollux says.

“I guess so. I like ‘em, though.”

“I like them, too. Maybe for different reasons. They’re just weird.” He pauses, looks at the screen, then looks back at Eridan. “Things just… hanging on a wall, and we walk around and look at them and read about them.”

“I like to think of them as… showcases for human accomplishment rather than just ‘things hangin’ on a wall.’”

“They’re good things don’t get me wrong, but they’re still just things at the end of the day.”

“Hm.”

“Sorry to offend.”

“You didn’t offend me, I’m just thinkin’.”

“About what?”

Eridan shrugged. “Why I like these places so much. Maybe it’s all the pretty colors.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

They start kissing again until a guard comes by and tells them to cut it out. They do, and Sollux seems embarrassed by it, but when they get far enough away they start to laugh it off again, and Eridan suggests they leave and get lunch. As chance would have it, they find just the kind of place they’re looking for without even using a map, a few minutes walk from the museum.

And in the end, after everything, that’s all either of them could have really asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey im finished with this now but heres one last thank you to all the people who read this fic! esp. those of you who left kudos and all the really sweet comments ive gotten- they really mean a lot to me. ive been writing on here for a few years and honestly feel like i used this platform a lot to both improve my writing and explore my identity so i guess... thanks for bearing with me. its been a wild ride. peace out, happy to see that a few of you guys really liked this silly little story i wrote.


End file.
